Locale::Language(3pm)					 Perl Programmers Reference Guide				     Locale::Language(3pm)

NAME

       Locale::Language - ISO two letter codes for language identification (ISO 639)

SYNOPSIS

	   use Locale::Language;

	   $lang = code2language('en');        # $lang gets 'English'
	   $code = language2code('French');    # $code gets 'fr'

	   @codes   = all_language_codes();
	   @names   = all_language_names();

DESCRIPTION

       The "Locale::Language" module provides access to the ISO two-letter codes for identifying languages, as defined in ISO 639. You can either
       access the codes via the "conversion routines" (described below), or via the two functions which return lists of all language codes or all
       language names.

CONVERSION ROUTINES

       There are two conversion routines: "code2language()" and "language2code()".

       code2language()
	   This function takes a two letter language code and returns a string which contains the name of the language identified. If the code is
	   not a valid language code, as defined by ISO 639, then "undef" will be returned.

	       $lang = code2language($code);

       language2code()
	   This function takes a language name and returns the corresponding two letter language code, if such exists.	If the argument could not
	   be identified as a language name, then "undef" will be returned.

	       $code = language2code('French');

	   The case of the language name is not important.  See the section "KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS" below.

QUERY ROUTINES

       There are two function which can be used to obtain a list of all language codes, or all language names:

       "all_language_codes()"
	   Returns a list of all two-letter language codes.  The codes are guaranteed to be all lower-case, and not in any particular order.

       "all_language_names()"
	   Returns a list of all language names for which there is a corresponding two-letter language code. The names are capitalised, and not
	   returned in any particular order.

EXAMPLES

       The following example illustrates use of the "code2language()" function.  The user is prompted for a language code, and then told the cor-
       responding language name:

	   $| = 1;    # turn off buffering

	   print "Enter language code: ";
	   chop($code = <STDIN>);
	   $lang = code2language($code);
	   if (defined $lang)
	   {
	       print "$code = $lang
";
	   }
	   else
	   {
	       print "'$code' is not a valid language code!
";
	   }

KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

       o   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.

       o   Currently just supports the two letter language codes - there are also three-letter codes, and numbers.  Would these be of any use to
	   anyone?

SEE ALSO

       Locale::Country
	   ISO codes for identification of country (ISO 3166).	Supports 2-letter, 3-letter, and numeric country codes.

       Locale::Script
	   ISO codes for identification of written scripts (ISO 15924).

       Locale::Currency
	   ISO three letter codes for identification of currencies and funds (ISO 4217).

       ISO 639:1988 (E/F)
	   Code for the representation of names of languages.

       http://lcweb.loc.gov/standards/iso639-2/langhome.html
	   Home page for ISO 639-2.

AUTHOR

       Neil Bowers <neil@bowers.com>

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2002, 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.

perl v5.8.0							    2002-06-01						     Locale::Language(3pm)