Provided by: libnumber-phone-perl_3.8007-1_all 
NAME
Number::Phone - base class for Number::Phone::* modules
SYNOPSIS
In a sub-class ...
package Number::Phone::UK;
use base 'Number::Phone';
and to magically use the right subclass ...
use Number::Phone;
$daves_phone = Number::Phone->new('+442087712924');
$daves_other_phone = Number::Phone->new('+44 7979 866 975');
# alternatively Number::Phone->new('+44', '7979 866 975');
# or Number::Phone->new('UK', '07979 866 975');
if($daves_phone->is_mobile()) {
send_rude_SMS();
}
in the example, the +44 is recognised as the country code for the UK, so the appropriate
country-specific module is loaded if available.
If you pass in a bogus country code not recognised by Number::Phone::Country, the
constructor will return undef.
INCOMPATIBLE CHANGES
Early versions of this module allowed what are now object methods to also be called as
class methods or even as functions. This was a bad design decision. Use of those calling
conventions was deprecated in version 2.0, released in January 2012, and started to emit
warnings. All code to support those calling conventions has now been removed.
Until 2017 we used KOS for the country code for Kosovo, that has now changed to XK. See
Number::Phone::Country.
From version 3.4000 to 3.4003 inclusive we accepted any old garbage after +383 as being
valid, as the Kosovo numbering plan had not been published. Now that that has been
published, we use libphonenumber data, and validate against it.
The prefix codes in 3.4003 and earlier were managed by hand and so got out of date. After
that release they are mostly derived from libphonenumber. libphonenumber's data includes
carrier selection codes when they are mandatory for dialling so those are now included.
This sometimes means that some random carrier has been arbitrarily privileged over others.
As of version 3.6000 the "areaname" method is documented as taking an optional language
code. As far as I can tell providing this new parameter to the method as provided by all
the subclasses on the CPAN won't do any harm.
As of version 3.6000 the "areaname" method pays attention to your locale settings and so
you might start getting locale-appropriate versions of areanames instead of what you used
to get.
3.8000 is a bit stricter about numbers and countries not matching in the constructor. This
may affect users who specify places like Guernsey but provide numbers from Jersey or the
Isle of Man, all three of which are separate jurisdictions squatting on random places all
over the UK's number plan.
COMPATIBILITY WITH libphonenumber
libphonenumber is a similar project for other languages, maintained by Google.
If you pass in a country code for which no supporting module is available, the constructor
will try to use a 'stub' class under Number::Phone::StubCountry::* that uses data
automatically extracted from Google's libphonenumber project. libphonenumber doesn't have
enough data to support all the features of Number::Phone. If you want to disable this,
then pass 'nostubs' when you use the module:
use Number::Phone qw(nostubs);
Alternatively, if you want to *always* use data derived from libphonenumber, you should
use the Number::Phone::Lib module instead. This is a subclass of Number::Phone that will
use the libphonenumber-derived stub classes even when extra data is available in, for
example, Number::Phone::UK. You might want to do this for compatibility or performance.
Number::Phone::UK is quite slow, because it uses a huge database for some of its features.
PERL VERSIONS SUPPORTED
A perl built with support for 64 bit ints will be required some time after 2023-06-01.
This is the default for all vaguely recent builds of perl on all modern systems.
Perl 5.8 (and below) is not fully supported as of version 3.8006. This is because I have a
dependency when packaging it on XML::XPath which dropped support for perl 5.8. This means
that I can no longer automatically test Number::Phone on perl 5.8. There is no runtime
dependency on XML::XPath, so I expect Number::Phone to keep on truckin' on 5.8, and I
won't deliberately remove support without notice. However, because I can not automatically
test, I can't guarantee that I won't accidentally remove support. If I do accidentally
remove it, it ain't coming back.
METHODS
All Number::Phone classes can implement the following object methods.
The implementations in the parent class all return undef unless otherwise noted.
Those methods whose names begin "is_" should return the following values:
undef
The truth or falsehood can not be determined;
0 (zero)
False - eg, is_personal() might return 0 for a number that is assigned to a government
department.
1 (one)
True
IS_* methods
is_valid
The number is valid within the national numbering scheme. It may or may not yet be
allocated, or it may be reserved. Any number which returns true for any of the
following methods will also be valid.
is_allocated
The number has been allocated to a telco for use. It may or may not yet be in use or
may be reserved.
is_in_use
The number has been assigned to a customer or is in use by the telco for its own
purposes.
is_geographic
The number refers to a geographic area.
is_fixed_line
The number, when in use, can only refer to a fixed line.
is_mobile
The number, when in use, can only refer to a mobile phone.
is_pager
The number, when in use, can only refer to a pager.
is_ipphone
The number, when in use, can only refer to a VoIP service.
is_isdn
The number, when in use, can only refer to an ISDN service.
is_tollfree
Callers will not be charged for calls to this number under normal circumstances.
is_specialrate
The number, when in use, attracts special rates. For instance, national dialling at
local rates, or premium rates for services.
is_adult
The number, when in use, goes to a service of an adult nature, such as porn.
is_personal
The number, when in use, goes to an individual person.
is_corporate
The number, when in use, goes to a business.
is_government
The number, when in use, goes to a government department. Note that the emergency
services are considered to be a network service so should *not* return true for this
method.
is_international
The number is charged like a domestic number (including toll-free or special rate),
but actually terminates in a different country. This covers the special dialling
arrangements between Spain and Gibraltar, and between the Republic of Ireland and
Northern Ireland, as well as services such as the various "Country Direct"-a-likes.
See also the "country()" method.
is_network_service
The number is some kind of network service such as the operator, directory enquiries,
emergency services etc
is_drama
The number is for use in fiction, such as TV and Radio drama programmes. It will not
be allocated for use in real life.
OTHER NUMBER METADATA METHODS
country_code
The numeric code for this country. eg, 44 for the UK. Note that there is *no* +
sign.
While the superclass does indeed implement this (returning undef) this is nonsense in
just about all cases, so you should always implement this.
regulator
Returns some text in an appropriate character set saying who the telecoms regulator
is, with optional details such as their web site or phone number.
areacode
Return the area code - if applicable - for the number. If not applicable, the
superclass implementation returns undef.
areaname
Return the name for the area code - if applicable. If not applicable, the superclass
definition returns undef. For instance, for a number beginning +44 20 it would return
'London'. Note that this may return data in non-ASCII character sets.
This may take an optional language code such as 'de' or 'en'. If you provide that then
you will get back whatever the place name is in that language, if the data is
available. If you don't provide it then it will first look at your locale settings and
try to find a name in an appropriate language, and if nothing is found fall back to
English.
location
This returns an approximate geographic location for the number if possible. Obviously
this only applies to fixed lines! The data returned is, if defined, a reference to an
array containing two elements, latitude and longitude, in degrees. North of the
equator and East of Greenwich are positive. You may optionally return a third element
indicating how confident you are of the location. Specify this as a number in
kilometers indicating the radius of the error circle.
The superclass implementation returns undef, which is a reasonable default.
subscriber
Return the subscriber part of the number.
While the superclass implementation returns undef, this is nonsense in just about all
cases, so you should always implement this.
operator
Return the name of the telco assigned this number, in an appropriate character set and
with optional details such as their web site or phone number. Note that this should
not take into account number portability.
The superclass implementation returns undef, as this information is not easily
available for most numbering plans.
operator_ported
Return the name of the telco to whom this number has been ported. If it is known to
have not been ported, then return the same as "operator()" above.
The superclass implementation returns undef, indicating that you don't know whether
the number has been ported.
type
Return a listref of all the is_... methods above which are true. Note that this
method should only be implemented in the super-class. eg, for the number +44 20
87712924 this might return "[qw(valid allocated geographic)]".
format
Return a sanely formatted E.123-compliant version of the number, complete with IDD
code, eg for the UK number (0208) 771-2924 it would return +44 20 8771 2924.
The superclass implementation returns undef, which is nonsense, so you should always
implement this.
format_using
If you want something different from E.123, then pass this the name of a formatter to
use.
For example, if you want to get "just the digits, ma'am", use the Raw formatter thus:
Number::Phone->new('+44 20 8771 2924')->format_using('Raw');
which will return:
2087712924
It is a fatal error to specify a non-existent formatter.
format_for_country
Given a country code (either two-letter ISO or numeric prefix), return the number
formatted either nationally-formatted, if the number is in the same country, or as a
nationally-preferred international number if not. Internally this uses the National
and NationallyPreferredIntl formatters. Beware of the potential performance hit!
country
The two letter ISO country code for the country in which the call will terminate.
This is implemented in the superclass and you will only have to implement your own
version for countries where part of the number range is overlayed with another
country.
Exception: for the UK, return 'uk', not 'gb'.
Specifically, the superclass implementation looks at the class name and returns the
last two-letter code it finds. eg ...
from Number::Phone::UK, it would return UK
from Number::Phone::UK::IM, it would return IM
from Number::Phone::NANP::US, it would return US
from Number::Phone::FR::Full, it would return FR
translates_to
If the number forwards to another number (such as a special rate number forwarding to
a geographic number), or is part of a chunk of number-space mapped onto another chunk
of number-space (such as where a country has a shortcut to (part of) another country's
number-space, like how Gibraltar used to appear as an area code in Spain's numbering
plan as well as having its own country code), then this method may return an object
representing the target number. Otherwise it returns undef.
The superclass implementation returns undef.
DATA SOURCES
data_source
Class method, return some hopefully useful text about the source of the data (if any)
that drives a country-specific module. The implementation in the base class returns
undef as the base class itself has no data source.
libphonenumber_tag
Class method which you should not over-ride, implemented in the base class. Returns
the version of libphonenumber whose metadata was used for this release of
Number::Phone. NB that this is derived from their most recent git tag, so may
occasionally be a little ahead of the most recent libphonenumber release as the tag
gets created before their release is built.
The current version of this is also documented in Number::Phone::Data.
HOW TO DIAL FROM ONE NUMBER TO ANOTHER
dial_to
Takes another Number::Phone object as its only argument and returns a string showing
how to dial from the number represented by the invocant to that represented by the
argument.
Examples:
Call from +44 20 7210 3613
to +44 1932 341 111
You dial 01932341111
Call from +44 20 7210 3613
to +44 1932 341 111
You dial 01932341111
Call from +44 20 7210 3613
to +1 202 224 6361
You dial 0012022246361
Call from +1 202 224 6361
to +44 20 7210 3613
You dial 011442072103613
Call from +44 7979 866975
to +44 7979 866976
You dial 07979 866976
This method is implemented in the superclass, but you may have to define certain other
methods to assist it. The algorithm is as follows:
international call
Append together the source country's international dialling prefix (usually 00),
then the destination country's country code, area code (if the country has such a
thing), and subscriber number.
domestic call, different area code
Call the object's "intra_country_dial_to()" method.
If it dies, return undef.
If it returns anything other than undef, return that.
If it returns undef, append together the country's out-of-area calling prefix
(usually 0 or 1), the destination area code and subscriber number.
domestic call, same area code
Call the object's "intra_country_dial_to()" method.
If it dies, return undef.
If it returns anything other than undef, return that.
If it returns undef, return the destination subscriber number.
intra_country_dial_to
Takes an object (which should be in the same country as the invocant) and returns
either undef (meaning "use the default behaviour") or a dialling string. If it dies
this means "I don't know how to dial this number".
The superclass implementation is to die.
Note that the meaning of undef is a bit different for this method.
Why die by default? Some countries have weird arrangements for dialling some numbers
domestically. In fact, both the countries I'm most familiar with do, so I assume that
others do too.
CONSTRUCTOR
new Can be called with either one or two parameters. The *first* is an optional country
code (see the "country()" method). The other is a phone number. If a country code is
specified, and a subclass for that country is available, the phone number is passed to
its constructor unchanged.
If only one parameter is passed, then we try to figure out which is the right country
subclass to use by pre-pending a + sign to the number if there isn't one, and looking
the country up using Number::Phone::Country. That gives us a two letter country code
that is used to try to load the right module. We then pass the number through to that
module's constructor and return whatever it says (which may be undef if you pass in an
invalid number - see SUBCLASSING below).
The constructor returns undef if it can not figure out what country you're talking
about, or an object based on Google's libphonenumber data if there's no complete
country-specific module available.
It is generally assumed that numbers are complete and unambiguous - ie you can't
normally pass just the local part to the constructor if the number has an area code.
Any subclass's constructor which contravenes this should document it.
If you call it with two parameters, then the two must match. ie, if you do this:
Number::Phone->new("FR", "+441424220001")
you will get "undef" back because whiel the number is valid, it ain't French. This
usually applies to the case where a single country's number plan contains other
jurisdictions, such as the case of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man squatting on
the United Kingdom's number plan. For example, this fails, because the number is from
Guernsey, not Jersey:
Number::Phone->new('JE', '01481256789')
For backward compatibility and convenience, however, if you ask for an object
representing a number in the "host" country but pass a number for the "sub-country"
then you'll get back a valid object representing the sub-country:
my $gg_number = Number::Phone->new('GB', '01481256789')
SUBCLASSING
Sub-classes should implement methods as above, including a "new()" constructor. The
constructor should take a single parameter, a phone number, and should validate that. If
the number is valid (use your "is_valid()" method!) then you can return a blessed object.
Otherwise you should return undef.
The constructor *must* be capable of accepting a number with the + sign and the country's
numeric code attached, but should also accept numbers in the preferred local format (eg
01234 567890 in the UK, which is the same number as +44 1234 567890) so that users can go
straight to your class without going through Number::Phone's magic country detector.
Subclasses' names should be Number::Phone::XX, where XX is the two letter ISO code for the
country, in upper case. So, for example, France would be FR and Ireland would be IE. As
usual, the UK is an exception, using UK instead of the ISO-mandated GB. NANP countries
are also an exception, going like Number::Phone::NANP::XX.
UPDATES
I release updates approximately every three months, including new data.
I will also do intercalary releases to fix *serious* bugs in the code and when *large*
data updates (eg when a country's numbering scheme changes) are brought to my attention.
I will not normally do a release just because a country has added some new number range.
If this irks you then I would welcome a discussion on how you can best write a patch, with
tests, that will reliably incorporate updated data from libphonenumber. Much of the needed
code already exists in the repository but it is not fit for end-user consumption.
BUGS/FEEDBACK
Please report bugs by at <https://github.com/DrHyde/perl-modules-Number-Phone/issues>,
including, if possible, a test case.
MAILING LIST
There is a mailing list for discussion and help. Please subscribe at
<http://lists.scsys.co.uk/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/number-phone>.
Kindly hosted by Shadowcat <http://scsys.co.uk>.
SEE ALSO
<https://github.com/googlei18n/libphonenumber>, a similar project for Java, C++ and
Javascript. Number::Phone imports its data.
SOURCE CODE REPOSITORY
<git://github.com/DrHyde/perl-modules-Number-Phone.git>
AUTHOR, COPYRIGHT and LICENCE
Copyright 2004 - 2015 David Cantrell <david@cantrell.org.uk>
This software is free-as-in-speech software, and may be used, distributed, and modified
under the terms of either the GNU General Public Licence version 2 or the Artistic
Licence. It's up to you which one you use. The full text of the licences can be found in
the files GPL2.txt and ARTISTIC.txt, respectively.
Some files are under the Apache licence, a copy of which can be found in the file
Apache-2.0.txt.
CONSPIRACY
This module is also free-as-in-mason software.