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authorSiep Kroonenberg <siepo@cybercomm.nl>2011-02-17 17:57:31 +0000
committerSiep Kroonenberg <siepo@cybercomm.nl>2011-02-17 17:57:31 +0000
commit320d8694fec25ed148613684543b5a0504a046ae (patch)
tree0ddcf933d3acd3c98a387fa2bf73d0554ca6e50d /Master/tlpkg/tlperl/lib/Locale/Country.pod
parent779e71f16ca01a6244b632b95bdb461fec163b34 (diff)
New tlperl part XIV
git-svn-id: svn://tug.org/texlive/trunk@21436 c570f23f-e606-0410-a88d-b1316a301751
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+
+=head1 NAME
+
+Locale::Country - ISO codes for country identification (ISO 3166)
+
+=head1 SYNOPSIS
+
+ use Locale::Country;
+
+ $country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan'
+ $code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no'
+
+ @codes = all_country_codes();
+ @names = all_country_names();
+
+ # semi-private routines
+ Locale::Country::alias_code('uk' => 'gb');
+ Locale::Country::rename_country('gb' => 'Great Britain');
+
+
+=head1 DESCRIPTION
+
+The C<Locale::Country> module provides access to the ISO
+codes for identifying countries, as defined in ISO 3166-1.
+You can either access the codes via the L<conversion routines>
+(described below), or with the two functions which return lists
+of all country codes or all country names.
+
+There are three different code sets you can use for identifying
+countries:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item B<alpha-2>
+
+Two letter codes, such as 'tv' for Tuvalu.
+This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2>.
+
+=item B<alpha-3>
+
+Three letter codes, such as 'brb' for Barbados.
+This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3>.
+
+=item B<numeric>
+
+Numeric codes, such as 064 for Bhutan.
+This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_NUMERIC>.
+
+=back
+
+All of the routines take an optional additional argument
+which specifies the code set to use.
+If not specified, it defaults to the two-letter codes.
+This is partly for backwards compatibility (previous versions
+of this module only supported the alpha-2 codes), and
+partly because they are the most widely used codes.
+
+The alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes are not case-dependent,
+so you can use 'BO', 'Bo', 'bO' or 'bo' for Bolivia.
+When a code is returned by one of the functions in
+this module, it will always be lower-case.
+
+As of version 2.00, Locale::Country supports variant
+names for countries. So, for example, the country code for "United States"
+is "us", so country2code('United States') returns 'us'.
+Now the following will also return 'us':
+
+ country2code('United States of America')
+ country2code('USA')
+
+
+=head1 CONVERSION ROUTINES
+
+There are three conversion routines: C<code2country()>, C<country2code()>,
+and C<country_code2code()>.
+
+=over 4
+
+=item code2country( CODE, [ CODESET ] )
+
+This function takes a country code and returns a string
+which contains the name of the country identified.
+If the code is not a valid country code, as defined by ISO 3166,
+then C<undef> will be returned:
+
+ $country = code2country('fi');
+
+=item country2code( STRING, [ CODESET ] )
+
+This function takes a country name and returns the corresponding
+country code, if such exists.
+If the argument could not be identified as a country name,
+then C<undef> will be returned:
+
+ $code = country2code('Norway', LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3);
+ # $code will now be 'nor'
+
+The case of the country name is not important.
+See the section L<KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS> below.
+
+=item country_code2code( CODE, CODESET, CODESET )
+
+This function takes a country code from one code set,
+and returns the corresponding code from another code set.
+
+ $alpha2 = country_code2code('fin',
+ LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3, LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
+ # $alpha2 will now be 'fi'
+
+If the code passed is not a valid country code in
+the first code set, or if there isn't a code for the
+corresponding country in the second code set,
+then C<undef> will be returned.
+
+=back
+
+
+=head1 QUERY ROUTINES
+
+There are two function which can be used to obtain a list of all codes,
+or all country names:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item C<all_country_codes( [ CODESET ] )>
+
+Returns a list of all two-letter country codes.
+The codes are guaranteed to be all lower-case,
+and not in any particular order.
+
+=item C<all_country_names( [ CODESET ] )>
+
+Returns a list of all country names for which there is a corresponding
+country code in the specified code set.
+The names are capitalised, and not returned in any particular order.
+
+Not all countries have alpha-3 and numeric codes -
+some just have an alpha-2 code,
+so you'll get a different number of countries
+depending on which code set you specify.
+
+=back
+
+
+=head1 SEMI-PRIVATE ROUTINES
+
+Locale::Country provides two semi-private routines for modifying
+the internal data.
+Given their status, they aren't exported by default,
+and so need to be called by prefixing the function name with the
+package name.
+
+=head2 alias_code
+
+Define a new code as an alias for an existing code:
+
+ Locale::Country::alias_code( ALIAS => CODE [, CODESET ] )
+
+This feature was added as a mechanism for handling
+a "uk" code. The ISO standard says that the two-letter code for
+"United Kingdom" is "gb", whereas domain names are all .uk.
+
+By default the module does not understand "uk", since it is implementing
+an ISO standard. If you would like 'uk' to work as the two-letter
+code for United Kingdom, use the following:
+
+ Locale::Country::alias_code('uk' => 'gb');
+
+With this code, both "uk" and "gb" are valid codes for United Kingdom,
+with the reverse lookup returning "uk" rather than the usual "gb".
+
+B<Note:> this function was previously called _alias_code,
+but the leading underscore has been dropped.
+The old name will be supported for all 2.X releases for
+backwards compatibility.
+
+=head2 rename_country
+
+If the official country name just isn't good enough for you,
+you can rename a country. For example, the official country
+name for code 'gb' is 'United Kingdom'.
+If you want to change that, you might call:
+
+ Locale::Country::rename_country('gb' => 'Great Britain');
+
+This means that calling code2country('gb') will now return
+'Great Britain' instead of 'United Kingdom'.
+The original country name is retained as an alias,
+so for the above example, country2code('United Kingdom')
+will still return 'gb'.
+
+
+=head1 EXAMPLES
+
+The following example illustrates use of the C<code2country()> function.
+The user is prompted for a country code, and then told the corresponding
+country name:
+
+ $| = 1; # turn off buffering
+
+ print "Enter country code: ";
+ chop($code = <STDIN>);
+ $country = code2country($code, LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
+ if (defined $country)
+ {
+ print "$code = $country\n";
+ }
+ else
+ {
+ print "'$code' is not a valid country code!\n";
+ }
+
+=head1 DOMAIN NAMES
+
+Most top-level domain names are based on these codes,
+but there are certain codes which aren't.
+If you are using this module to identify country from hostname,
+your best bet is to preprocess the country code.
+
+For example, B<edu>, B<com>, B<gov> and friends would map to B<us>;
+B<uk> would map to B<gb>. Any others?
+
+=head1 KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+When using C<country2code()>, the country name must currently appear
+exactly as it does in the source of the module. The module now supports
+a small number of variants.
+
+Possible extensions to this are: an interface for getting at the
+list of variant names, and regular expression matches.
+
+=item *
+
+In the current implementation, all data is read in when the
+module is loaded, and then held in memory.
+A lazy implementation would be more memory friendly.
+
+=item *
+
+Support for country names in different languages.
+
+=back
+
+=head1 SEE ALSO
+
+=over 4
+
+=item Locale::Language
+
+ISO two letter codes for identification of language (ISO 639).
+
+=item Locale::Script
+
+ISO codes for identification of scripts (ISO 15924).
+
+=item Locale::Currency
+
+ISO three letter codes for identification of currencies
+and funds (ISO 4217).
+
+=item Locale::SubCountry
+
+ISO codes for country sub-divisions (states, counties, provinces, etc),
+as defined in ISO 3166-2.
+This module is not part of the Locale-Codes distribution,
+but is available from CPAN in CPAN/modules/by-module/Locale/
+
+=item ISO 3166-1
+
+The ISO standard which defines these codes.
+
+=item http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html
+
+Official home page for the ISO 3166 maintenance agency.
+
+=item http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso3166/iso3166-1-en.html
+
+Another useful, but not official, home page.
+
+=item http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/app-d-1.html
+
+An appendix in the CIA world fact book which lists country codes
+as defined by ISO 3166, FIPS 10-4, and internet domain names.
+
+=back
+
+
+=head1 AUTHOR
+
+Neil Bowers E<lt>neil@bowers.comE<gt>
+
+=head1 COPYRIGHT
+
+Copyright (C) 2002-2004, Neil Bowers.
+
+Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe (CRE).
+
+This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
+modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
+
+=cut
+