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-
- =head1 NAME
-
- Locale::Script - ISO codes for script identification (ISO 15924)
-
- =head1 SYNOPSIS
-
- use Locale::Script;
- use Locale::Constants;
-
- $script = code2script('ph'); # 'Phoenician'
- $code = script2code('Tibetan'); # 'bo'
- $code3 = script2code('Tibetan',
- LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3); # 'bod'
- $codeN = script2code('Tibetan',
- LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_NUMERIC); # 330
-
- @codes = all_script_codes();
- @scripts = all_script_names();
-
-
- =head1 DESCRIPTION
-
- The C<Locale::Script> module provides access to the ISO
- codes for identifying scripts, as defined in ISO 15924.
- For example, Egyptian hieroglyphs are denoted by the two-letter
- code 'eg', the three-letter code 'egy', and the numeric code 050.
-
- You can either access the codes via the conversion routines
- (described below), or with the two functions which return lists
- of all script codes or all script names.
-
- There are three different code sets you can use for identifying
- scripts:
-
- =over 4
-
- =item B<alpha-2>
-
- Two letter codes, such as 'bo' for Tibetan.
- This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2>.
-
- =item B<alpha-3>
-
- Three letter codes, such as 'ell' for Greek.
- This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3>.
-
- =item B<numeric>
-
- Numeric codes, such as 410 for Hiragana.
- 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 Locale modules 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 Tibetan.
- When a code is returned by one of the functions in
- this module, it will always be lower-case.
-
- =head2 SPECIAL CODES
-
- The standard defines various special codes.
-
- =over 4
-
- =item *
-
- The standard reserves codes in the ranges B<qa> - B<qt>,
- B<qaa> - B<qat>, and B<900> - B<919>, for private use.
-
- =item *
-
- B<zx>, B<zxx>, and B<997>, are the codes for unwritten languages.
-
- =item *
-
- B<zy>, B<zyy>, and B<998>, are the codes for an undetermined script.
-
- =item *
-
- B<zz>, B<zzz>, and B<999>, are the codes for an uncoded script.
-
- =back
-
- The private codes are not recognised by Locale::Script,
- but the others are.
-
-
- =head1 CONVERSION ROUTINES
-
- There are three conversion routines: C<code2script()>, C<script2code()>,
- and C<script_code2code()>.
-
- =over 4
-
- =item code2script( CODE, [ CODESET ] )
-
- This function takes a script code and returns a string
- which contains the name of the script identified.
- If the code is not a valid script code, as defined by ISO 15924,
- then C<undef> will be returned:
-
- $script = code2script('cy'); # Cyrillic
-
- =item script2code( STRING, [ CODESET ] )
-
- This function takes a script name and returns the corresponding
- script code, if such exists.
- If the argument could not be identified as a script name,
- then C<undef> will be returned:
-
- $code = script2code('Gothic', LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3);
- # $code will now be 'gth'
-
- The case of the script name is not important.
- See the section L<KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS> below.
-
- =item script_code2code( CODE, CODESET, CODESET )
-
- This function takes a script code from one code set,
- and returns the corresponding code from another code set.
-
- $alpha2 = script_code2code('jwi',
- LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3 => LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
- # $alpha2 will now be 'jw' (Javanese)
-
- If the code passed is not a valid script code in
- the first code set, or if there isn't a code for the
- corresponding script 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 script names:
-
- =over 4
-
- =item C<all_script_codes ( [ CODESET ] )>
-
- Returns a list of all two-letter script codes.
- The codes are guaranteed to be all lower-case,
- and not in any particular order.
-
- =item C<all_script_names ( [ CODESET ] )>
-
- Returns a list of all script names for which there is a corresponding
- script code in the specified code set.
- The names are capitalised, and not returned in any particular order.
-
- =back
-
-
- =head1 EXAMPLES
-
- The following example illustrates use of the C<code2script()> function.
- The user is prompted for a script code, and then told the corresponding
- script name:
-
- $| = 1; # turn off buffering
-
- print "Enter script code: ";
- chop($code = <STDIN>);
- $script = code2script($code, LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
- if (defined $script)
- {
- print "$code = $script\n";
- }
- else
- {
- print "'$code' is not a valid script code!\n";
- }
-
-
- =head1 KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
-
- =over 4
-
- =item *
-
- When using C<script2code()>, the script name must currently appear
- exactly as it does in the source of the module. For example,
-
- script2code('Egyptian hieroglyphs')
-
- will return B<eg>, as expected. But the following will all return C<undef>:
-
- script2code('hieroglyphs')
- script2code('Egyptian Hieroglypics')
-
- If there's need for it, a future version could have variants
- for script names.
-
- =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.
-
- =back
-
- =head1 SEE ALSO
-
- =over 4
-
- =item Locale::Language
-
- ISO two letter codes for identification of language (ISO 639).
-
- =item Locale::Currency
-
- ISO three letter codes for identification of currencies
- and funds (ISO 4217).
-
- =item Locale::Country
-
- ISO three letter codes for identification of countries (ISO 3166)
-
- =item ISO 15924
-
- The ISO standard which defines these codes.
-
- =item http://www.evertype.com/standards/iso15924/
-
- Home page for ISO 15924.
-
-
- =back
-
-
- =head1 AUTHOR
-
- Neil Bowers E<lt>neil@bowers.comE<gt>
-
- =head1 COPYRIGHT
-
- Copyright (c) 2002 Neil Bowers.
-
- This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
- modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
-
- =cut
-
-