ICU Overview The Open Source Unicode Library Markus

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Agenda § Background Information § What is ICU? § Architecture Overview – Significant New ICU Features § References § Q and A 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 2 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Why Globalization? 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 3 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Unicode § Handles all modern world languages § Efficient and effective processing § Lossless data exchange § Enables single-binary global software § But… all languages ⇒ large, complex standard – 1, 400 pages + Annexes + additional standards – Almost 100, 000 characters – Major update every 3 years; minor update about once a year – 70 character properties, many multi-valued – Affects many processes: display, line-break, regular expressions, … 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 4 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Internationalization, Localization & Locales § Requirements vary widely across languages & countries – Sorting – Text searching – Line breaks – Date/time/number/currency formatting – Codepage conversion – …and so on § Performance is key – It is easy to do the right thing – It is hard to do it fast 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 5 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library What is ICU? § International Components for Unicode § Globalization / Unicode / Locales § Mature, widely used set of C/C++ and Java libraries – Basis for Java 1. 1 internationalization, but goes far beyond Java 1. 1 § Very portable – identical results on all platforms / programming languages – C/C++ (ICU 4 C): 30+ platforms/compilers – Java (ICU 4 J): IBM & Sun JDK – C/C++ with Java (ICU 4 JNI) § Full threading model § Customizable & Modular § Open source – but non-restrictive 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 6 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Who uses ICU? § Products Within IBM – All 5 major software brands – Many other related software applications – Used on all IBM operating systems § Other Companies and Organizations – Adobe, Apple (Mac OS X), Avaya, BEA, Broad. Jump, Business Objects, Caris, CERN, Cognos, Debian Linux, Gentoo Linux, HP, Home Depot, Inktomi, JD Edwards, Macromedia, Mathworks, MKS, Mozilla, NCR, Open. Office, Parrot, Pay. Pal, Python, QNX, Rogue Wave, SAP, Siebel, SIL, Software AG, Sun Microsystems (Solaris, Java), Su. SE Linux, Sybase, Virage, web. Methods, Wine, Leica Geosystems GIS & Mapping LLC. , Xerox, Yahoo!. . . and many more 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 7 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library ICU Features § Breaks: word, line, … § Formatting § Unicode text handling § Charset conversions (700+) – Date & time § Collation & Searching – Messages § Locales from CLDR (250+) – Numbers & currencies § Resource Bundles § Transforms § Calendar & Time zones – Normalization § Complex-text layout engine – Casing § Unicode Regular Expressions – Transliterations 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 8 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Architecture Overview 1 § Locale Based Services – Locale is an identifier, not a container – Keywords for variants: de@collation=phonebook § Resource inheritance: shared resources root Language en de zh Script Region US IE 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference DE CH 9 Hant Hans TW CN CN TW San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Architecture Overview 2 § Open and Close Service Model – Open a service object, use it many times, close it when done – Better performance by avoiding setup costs per operation § ICU Threading Model – Multiple service objects in use simultaneously with same or different attributes – Large resources shared in read-only cache – Compatible with Java threading model 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 10 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Architecture Overview 3 § Data Driven Services – Customize at build-time or run-time – Interchange with other platforms; • same results on each – Rule-based • Collation, Word-breaks, Transforms – Pattern-based • Date/Time/Number/Message formatting – Table-based • Character Conversion 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 11 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Architecture Overview – ICU 4 C § Simple Error Handling – Thread safe – Works in C and C++ § C/C++ subset for portability § Version Management – Multiple versions of ICU 4 C in the same process memory space – Data and library versioning § String Buffer Management – Preflighting and overflow protection § Flexible – Allows Loading and Unloading ICU 4 C libraries – Runtime settable memory allocation and mutex functions 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 12 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Architecture Overview – ICU 4 J § Supplement for Java § Core globalization (no character conversion or regular expressions) – We do supply complex text support for Sun § Modularized: products may add just needed functionality § Usually drop-in replacement for JDK functionality – Changing the import statements is usually all that is needed 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 13 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library ICU 4 J: Supplement for Java § CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository) – More fully supported locales than Java § Up-to-date globalization: standards-compliant; latest Unicode – Supplementary character (GB 18030, JIS X 213, HKSCS) • Java 5 adds handling of supplementary characters – Full properties – JDK has only a fraction – Unicode Collation Algorithm – Local calendars (Islamic, Japan, …); more time zone localizations – Currencies, String Search, Internationalized Domain Names – Transforms: Case, Scripts, Normalization § Much shorter release cycle and quicker support for Unicode standard 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 14 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Recent Additions for ICU 4 J § ICU 4 J in Eclipse Rich Client Platform – Take advantage of advanced globalization and support for more locales and more recent Unicode – Consistent behavior between application code and framework code – ICU 4 J 3. 4+ in Eclipse 3. 2 – No-op jar for JDK behavior and low-memory devices § Improved portability & JRE independence – Back-ported to Java 1. 3 (via preprocessor) – Carries own Time Zone data 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 15 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Unicode Text Handling § All UTF-16 processing §C – UChar*: null-terminated or with length § C++ – Unicode. String: full featured string class § Java – Uses java. lang. String and adds utilities § All handle supplementary characters – Required for GB 18030, HKSCS and JIS X 213 repertoires 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 16 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Abstract Text Access § Work with non-UTF-16 text UText – UTF-16 text in discontinuous buffers – UTF-8/32 APIs (char/wchar_t compatibility) – Non-Unicode APIs, SBCS or MBCS UTF-8, SBCS, … Line Break § UText API: Efficient interface – Provider implementation converts to UTF-16 – Fast inline code for text access within blocks – Storage-native indexes avoid index translation – Writable § For now only C/C++, used in few services 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 17 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Unicode Character Handling § All Unicode properties (except Unihan) – Direct API Ideographic Uppercase • Values, names, enumerations 不与 a ξ �� – Unicode. Set AΞ Alphabetic • Fast, compact set operations (union, intersection, …) • Pattern-based (both Perl & POSIX syntax for properties) – p{greek} vs. [: greek: ] • All properties: – [p{lowercase}-[a-z]] – [p{greek} & p{uppercase}] 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 18 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Recent Additions § Conforms to CLDR 1. 3/1. 4 – Adds and confirms many translated terms for languages, scripts, regions, currencies, and time zones – Access to more CLDR items § Support for Unicode interpretation of POSIX properties § Charset detection API (ICU 4 J only) § Load Java resource bundles from ULocale, support zh_Hant etc. § Better modularization for memory constrained environments (ICU 4 C only) § New icupkg tool for data customization – Easily update pre-built or installed data packages (. dat files) 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 19 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Character Set Conversion § Precise alias information: – When you ask for “Shift-JIS”, you can request the precise definition by platform (e. g. Windows, IBM, Java, … ) § Buffer management – API automatically handles characters that cross buffers – Can provide offset mappings between byte buffer and UChar buffer § Runtime customizations allowed for: – Illegal sequences – Undefined characters § Unicode Text Compression – SCSU, BOCU-1 § Consistent conversion results across platforms § You can use more character sets at runtime or build time 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 20 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Collation: Sorting, Searching and Matching § Fast international comparison for string search; fully UCA compliant – Compressed sort keys, optimized string comparison, sublinear string search – Incremental sortkeys used for radix sorting § Precise binary sortkey stability over time (library versioning) § Fully data driven – Many common rules provided § Runtime and build time rule customizations – Strength, normalization, upper vs. lowercase first, ignore punctuation, numeric, … – Only delta from UCA is needed for rule customization 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 21 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Calendar & Time Zones § International Calendars – Islamic, Buddhist, Hebrew, Japanese – Required for correct presentation of dates in some countries § Olson timezone support with localizations § Recent Additions: – Many more time zone localizations 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 22 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Formatting § Date & time: 8 formats per locale by default § Messages – Completely localizable, plural support § Numbers & currencies – Scientific Notation, Spelled-out (checks, etc. ) – Full Orthogonal Currency support (any currency × any language) • INR In Hindi: In English: In German: �� , ��. �� Rs. 1, 234. 57 Rs. 1. 234, 57 § Recent Additions – Flexible date/time formatting: Select format for desired set of fields – List available currencies API – Short and stand-alone month/day names 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 23 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Globalization Preferences Example Standard Language en_US (or en-US) RFC 3066 (or successor) Region AU ISO 3166 Currency EUR ISO 4217 Time zone Australia/Melbourne TZ DB Calendar islamic-civil CLDR Calendar ID Custom Date yyyy-mmm-dd CLDR Pattern Format VAT 08. 23% (books), 15. 73% (food) App/Country-Specific … Exact Composition Depends on System Requirements! § ICU: Convenient container for globalization preference values § Provides defaults for missing values § Convenient instantiation of related formatters 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 24 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Transforms § Unicode Normalization – Highly optimized for performance – performance utilities: concatenation, detection, comparison § Casing (upper, lower, title, folding) § General Transforms – Script transliterations – Half-width/Full-width, Hex, etc. – Chain transforms together, filter source characters – Rule-based, customizable at runtime. § String. Prep: Internationalized Domain Names (IDN), NFS 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 25 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Segmentation: word, line & sentence § Fast state-table implementation § Customizable – Rule-based – customizable at runtime – Special customizations, e. g. Thai § Recent Additions: – Uses new UText API – ICU 4 J rule syntax aligned with ICU 4 C – Tracks Unicode Line Break changes 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 26 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Unicode Regular Expressions § Full Regex Implementation – C/C++ only: Java 1. 4 has own package (though not as powerful) § All Unicode Properties – Supported through Unicode. Set § Good performance – Competitive with non-Unicode regex 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 27 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Complex-text layout engine § Glyph processing, positioning & adjustment – Ligature substitution, contextual forms, kerning, accent placement, bidi scripts, etc. § Support for: – – – – Information for drawing Caret Display Hit Testing Selection Highlighting Caret Movement Layout Metrics Line Break Canonical Equivalence: a + ´ or á § Recent Additions: – Tibetan, Sinhala, Indic ZWJ/ZWNJ, Kerning 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 28 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library References § ICU main site: – http: //www. ibm. com/software/globalization/icu/ – Links to • Download ICU • User Guide, Technical FAQ, Support, Bug Reports, Demonstrations § ICU support site: – http: //icu. sourceforge. net/ § Unicode Consortium – http: //www. unicode. org/ • Unicode glossary, Unicode character database 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 29 San Francisco, California, March, 2006

ICU Overview: The Open Source Unicode Library Questions and Answers 29 th Internationalization and Unicode Conference 30 San Francisco, California, March, 2006