Unicode::UCD(3pm)					 Perl Programmers Reference Guide					 Unicode::UCD(3pm)

NAME

       Unicode::UCD - Unicode character database

SYNOPSIS

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charinfo';
	   my $charinfo   = charinfo($codepoint);

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charblock';
	   my $charblock  = charblock($codepoint);

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charscript';
	   my $charscript = charblock($codepoint);

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charblocks';
	   my $charblocks = charblocks();

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charscripts';
	   my %charscripts = charscripts();

	   use Unicode::UCD qw(charscript charinrange);
	   my $range = charscript($script);
	   print "looks like $script
" if charinrange($range, $codepoint);

	   use Unicode::UCD 'compexcl';
	   my $compexcl = compexcl($codepoint);

	   my $unicode_version = Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion();

DESCRIPTION

       The Unicode::UCD module offers a simple interface to the Unicode Character Database.

       charinfo

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charinfo';

	   my $charinfo = charinfo(0x41);

       charinfo() returns a reference to a hash that has the following fields as defined by the Unicode standard:

	   key

	   code 	    code point with at least four hexdigits
	   name 	    name of the character IN UPPER CASE
	   category	    general category of the character
	   combining	    classes used in the Canonical Ordering Algorithm
	   bidi 	    bidirectional category
	   decomposition    character decomposition mapping
	   decimal	    if decimal digit this is the integer numeric value
	   digit	    if digit this is the numeric value
	   numeric	    if numeric is the integer or rational numeric value
	   mirrored	    if mirrored in bidirectional text
	   unicode10	    Unicode 1.0 name if existed and different
	   comment	    ISO 10646 comment field
	   upper	    uppercase equivalent mapping
	   lower	    lowercase equivalent mapping
	   title	    titlecase equivalent mapping

	   block	    block the character belongs to (used in p{In...})
	   script	    script the character belongs to

       If no match is found, a reference to an empty hash is returned.

       The "block" property is the same as returned by charinfo().  It is not defined in the Unicode Character Database proper (Chapter 4 of the
       Unicode 3.0 Standard, aka TUS3) but instead in an auxiliary database (Chapter 14 of TUS3).  Similarly for the "script" property.

       Note that you cannot do (de)composition and casing based solely on the above "decomposition" and "lower", "upper", "title", properties, you
       will need also the compexcl(), casefold(), and casespec() functions.

       charblock

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charblock';

	   my $charblock = charblock(0x41);
	   my $charblock = charblock(1234);
	   my $charblock = charblock("0x263a");
	   my $charblock = charblock("U+263a");

	   my $range	 = charblock('Armenian');

       With a code point argument charblock() returns the block the character belongs to, e.g.	"Basic Latin".	Note that not all the character
       positions within all blocks are defined.

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       If supplied with an argument that can't be a code point, charblock() tries to do the opposite and interpret the argument as a character
       block. The return value is a range: an anonymous list of lists that contain start-of-range, end-of-range code point pairs. You can test
       whether a code point is in a range using the "charinrange" function. If the argument is not a known charater block, "undef" is returned.

       charscript

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charscript';

	   my $charscript = charscript(0x41);
	   my $charscript = charscript(1234);
	   my $charscript = charscript("U+263a");

	   my $range	  = charscript('Thai');

       With a code point argument charscript() returns the script the character belongs to, e.g.  "Latin", "Greek", "Han".

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       If supplied with an argument that can't be a code point, charscript() tries to do the opposite and interpret the argument as a character
       script. The return value is a range: an anonymous list of lists that contain start-of-range, end-of-range code point pairs. You can test
       whether a code point is in a range using the "charinrange" function. If the argument is not a known charater script, "undef" is returned.

       charblocks

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charblocks';

	   my $charblocks = charblocks();

       charblocks() returns a reference to a hash with the known block names as the keys, and the code point ranges (see "charblock") as the val-
       ues.

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       charscripts

	   use Unicode::UCD 'charscripts';

	   my %charscripts = charscripts();

       charscripts() returns a hash with the known script names as the keys, and the code point ranges (see "charscript") as the values.

       See also "Blocks versus Scripts".

       Blocks versus Scripts

       The difference between a block and a script is that scripts are closer to the linguistic notion of a set of characters required to present
       languages, while block is more of an artifact of the Unicode character numbering and separation into blocks of (mostly) 256 characters.

       For example the Latin script is spread over several blocks, such as "Basic Latin", "Latin 1 Supplement", "Latin Extended-A", and "Latin
       Extended-B".  On the other hand, the Latin script does not contain all the characters of the "Basic Latin" block (also known as the ASCII):
       it includes only the letters, and not, for example, the digits or the punctuation.

       For blocks see http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/Blocks.txt

       For scripts see UTR #24: http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr24/

       Matching Scripts and Blocks

       Scripts are matched with the regular-expression construct "p{...}" (e.g. "p{Tibetan}" matches characters of the Tibetan script), while
       "p{In...}" is used for blocks (e.g. "p{InTibetan}" matches any of the 256 code points in the Tibetan block).

       Code Point Arguments

       A code point argument is either a decimal or a hexadecimal scalar designating a Unicode character, or "U+" followed by hexadecimals desig-
       nating a Unicode character.  Note that Unicode is not limited to 16 bits (the number of Unicode characters is open-ended, in theory unlim-
       ited): you may have more than 4 hexdigits.

       charinrange

       In addition to using the "p{In...}" and "P{In...}" constructs, you can also test whether a code point is in the range as returned by
       "charblock" and "charscript" or as the values of the hash returned by "charblocks" and "charscripts" by using charinrange():

	   use Unicode::UCD qw(charscript charinrange);

	   $range = charscript('Hiragana');
	   print "looks like hiragana
" if charinrange($range, $codepoint);

       compexcl

	   use Unicode::UCD 'compexcl';

	   my $compexcl = compexcl("09dc");

       The compexcl() returns the composition exclusion (that is, if the character should not be produced during a precomposition) of the charac-
       ter specified by a code point argument.

       If there is a composition exclusion for the character, true is returned.  Otherwise, false is returned.

       casefold

	   use Unicode::UCD 'casefold';

	   my %casefold = casefold("09dc");

       The casefold() returns the locale-independent case folding of the character specified by a code point argument.

       If there is a case folding for that character, a reference to a hash with the following fields is returned:

	   key

	   code 	    code point with at least four hexdigits
	   status	    "C", "F", "S", or "I"
	   mapping	    one or more codes separated by spaces

       The meaning of the status is as follows:

	  C		    common case folding, common mappings shared
			    by both simple and full mappings
	  F		    full case folding, mappings that cause strings
			    to grow in length. Multiple characters are separated
			    by spaces
	  S		    simple case folding, mappings to single characters
			    where different from F
	  I		    special case for dotted uppercase I and
			    dotless lowercase i
			    - If this mapping is included, the result is
			      case-insensitive, but dotless and dotted I's
			      are not distinguished
			    - If this mapping is excluded, the result is not
			      fully case-insensitive, but dotless and dotted
			      I's are distinguished

       If there is no case folding for that character, "undef" is returned.

       For more information about case mappings see http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr21/

       casespec

	   use Unicode::UCD 'casespec';

	   my %casespec = casespec("09dc");

       The casespec() returns the potentially locale-dependent case mapping of the character specified by a code point argument.  The mapping may
       change the length of the string (which the basic Unicode case mappings as returned by charinfo() never do).

       If there is a case folding for that character, a reference to a hash with the following fields is returned:

	   key

	   code 	    code point with at least four hexdigits
	   lower	    lowercase
	   title	    titlecase
	   upper	    uppercase
	   condition	    condition list (may be undef)

       The "condition" is optional.  Where present, it consists of one or more locales or contexts, separated by spaces (other than as used to
       separate elements, spaces are to be ignored).  A condition list overrides the normal behavior if all of the listed conditions are true.
       Case distinctions in the condition list are not significant.  Conditions preceded by "NON_" represent the negation of the condition

       Note that when there are multiple case folding definitions for a single code point because of different locales, the value returned by cas-
       espec() is a hash reference which has the locales as the keys and hash references as described above as the values.

       A locale is defined as a 2-letter ISO 3166 country code, possibly followed by a "_" and a 2-letter ISO language code (possibly followed by
       a "_" and a variant code).  You can find the lists of those codes, see Locale::Country and Locale::Language.

       A context is one of the following choices:

	   FINAL	    The letter is not followed by a letter of
			    general category L (e.g. Ll, Lt, Lu, Lm, or Lo)
	   MODERN	    The mapping is only used for modern text
	   AFTER_i	    The last base character was "i" (U+0069)

       For more information about case mappings see http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr21/

       Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion

       Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion() returns the version of the Unicode Character Database, in other words, the version of the Unicode standard
       the database implements.  The version is a string of numbers delimited by dots ('.').

       Implementation Note

       The first use of charinfo() opens a read-only filehandle to the Unicode Character Database (the database is included in the Perl distribu-
       tion).  The filehandle is then kept open for further queries.  In other words, if you are wondering where one of your filehandles went,
       that's where.

BUGS

       Does not yet support EBCDIC platforms.

AUTHOR

       Jarkko Hietaniemi

perl v5.8.0							    2002-06-01							 Unicode::UCD(3pm)