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NAME
Unicode::UCD - Unicode character database
SYNOPSIS
use Unicode::UCD 'charinfo';
my $charinfo = charinfo($codepoint);
use Unicode::UCD 'casefold';
my $casefold = casefold(0xFB00);
use Unicode::UCD 'all_casefolds';
my $all_casefolds_ref = all_casefolds();
use Unicode::UCD 'casespec';
my $casespec = casespec(0xFB00);
use Unicode::UCD 'charblock';
my $charblock = charblock($codepoint);
use Unicode::UCD 'charscript';
my $charscript = charscript($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 $script\n" if charinrange($range, $codepoint);
use Unicode::UCD qw(general_categories bidi_types);
my $categories = general_categories();
my $types = bidi_types();
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_aliases';
my @space_names = prop_aliases("space");
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_value_aliases';
my @gc_punct_names = prop_value_aliases("Gc", "Punct");
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_invlist';
my @puncts = prop_invlist("gc=punctuation");
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_invmap';
my ($list_ref, $map_ref, $format, $missing)
= prop_invmap("General Category");
use Unicode::UCD 'compexcl';
my $compexcl = compexcl($codepoint);
use Unicode::UCD 'namedseq';
my $namedseq = namedseq($named_sequence_name);
my $unicode_version = Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion();
my $convert_to_numeric =
Unicode::UCD::num("\N{RUMI DIGIT ONE}\N{RUMI DIGIT TWO}");
DESCRIPTION
The Unicode::UCD module offers a series of functions that provide a simple interface to the Unicode
Character Database.
code point argument
Some of the functions are called with a code point argument, which is either a decimal or a hexadecimal
scalar designating a Unicode code point, or "U+" followed by hexadecimals designating a Unicode code
point. In other words, if you want a code point to be interpreted as a hexadecimal number, you must
prefix it with either "0x" or "U+", because a string like e.g. 123 will be interpreted as a decimal code
point.
Examples:
223 # Decimal 223
0223 # Hexadecimal 223 (= 547 decimal)
0xDF # Hexadecimal DF (= 223 decimal
U+DF # Hexadecimal DF
Note that the largest code point in Unicode is U+10FFFF.
charinfo()
use Unicode::UCD 'charinfo';
my $charinfo = charinfo(0x41);
This returns information about the input "code point argument" as a reference to a hash of fields as
defined by the Unicode standard. If the "code point argument" is not assigned in the standard (i.e., has
the general category "Cn" meaning "Unassigned") or is a non-character (meaning it is guaranteed to never
be assigned in the standard), "undef" is returned.
Fields that aren't applicable to the particular code point argument exist in the returned hash, and are
empty.
The keys in the hash with the meanings of their values are:
code
the input "code point argument" expressed in hexadecimal, with leading zeros added if necessary to
make it contain at least four hexdigits
name
name of code, all IN UPPER CASE. Some control-type code points do not have names. This field will
be empty for "Surrogate" and "Private Use" code points, and for the others without a name, it will
contain a description enclosed in angle brackets, like "<control>".
category
The short name of the general category of code. This will match one of the keys in the hash returned
by "general_categories()".
The "prop_value_aliases()" function can be used to get all the synonyms of the category name.
combining
the combining class number for code used in the Canonical Ordering Algorithm. For Unicode 5.1, this
is described in Section 3.11 "Canonical Ordering Behavior" available at
<http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.1.0/>
The "prop_value_aliases()" function can be used to get all the synonyms of the combining class
number.
bidi
bidirectional type of code. This will match one of the keys in the hash returned by "bidi_types()".
The "prop_value_aliases()" function can be used to get all the synonyms of the bidi type name.
decomposition
is empty if code has no decomposition; or is one or more codes (separated by spaces) that, taken in
order, represent a decomposition for code. Each has at least four hexdigits. The codes may be
preceded by a word enclosed in angle brackets then a space, like "<compat> ", giving the type of
decomposition
This decomposition may be an intermediate one whose components are also decomposable. Use
Unicode::Normalize to get the final decomposition.
decimal
if code is a decimal digit this is its integer numeric value
digit
if code represents some other digit-like number, this is its integer numeric value
numeric
if code represents a whole or rational number, this is its numeric value. Rational values are
expressed as a string like "1/4".
mirrored
"Y" or "N" designating if code is mirrored in bidirectional text
unicode10
name of code in the Unicode 1.0 standard if one existed for this code point and is different from the
current name
comment
As of Unicode 6.0, this is always empty.
upper
is empty if there is no single code point uppercase mapping for code (its uppercase mapping is
itself); otherwise it is that mapping expressed as at least four hexdigits. ("casespec()" should be
used in addition to charinfo() for case mappings when the calling program can cope with multiple code
point mappings.)
lower
is empty if there is no single code point lowercase mapping for code (its lowercase mapping is
itself); otherwise it is that mapping expressed as at least four hexdigits. ("casespec()" should be
used in addition to charinfo() for case mappings when the calling program can cope with multiple code
point mappings.)
title
is empty if there is no single code point titlecase mapping for code (its titlecase mapping is
itself); otherwise it is that mapping expressed as at least four hexdigits. ("casespec()" should be
used in addition to charinfo() for case mappings when the calling program can cope with multiple code
point mappings.)
block
the block code belongs to (used in "\p{Blk=...}"). See "Blocks versus Scripts".
script
the script code belongs to. See "Blocks versus Scripts".
Note that you cannot do (de)composition and casing based solely on the decomposition, combining, lower,
upper, and title fields; you will need also the "compexcl()", 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 code point belongs to, e.g. "Basic
Latin". The old-style block name is returned (see "Old-style versus new-style block names"). If the
code point is unassigned, this returns the block it would belong to if it were assigned. (If the Unicode
version being used is so early as to not have blocks, all code points are considered to be in
"No_Block".)
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 an old-style block name. The return value is a range set with one range: an
anonymous list with a single element that consists of another anonymous list whose first element is the
first code point in the block, and whose second (and final) element is the final code point in the block.
(The extra list consisting of just one element is so that the same program logic can be used to handle
both this return, and the return from "charscript()" which can have multiple ranges.) You can test
whether a code point is in a range using the "charinrange()" function. If the argument is not a known
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 code point belongs to, e.g. "Latin",
"Greek", "Han". If the code point is unassigned or the Unicode version being used is so early that it
doesn't have scripts, this function returns "Unknown".
If supplied with an argument that can't be a code point, charscript() tries to do the opposite and
interpret the argument as a script name. The return value is a range set: 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
set using the "charinrange()" function. If the argument is not a known script, "undef" is returned.
See also "Blocks versus Scripts".
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 values.
The names are in the old-style (see "Old-style versus new-style block names").
prop_invmap("block") can be used to get this same data in a different type of data structure.
See also "Blocks versus Scripts".
charscripts()
use Unicode::UCD 'charscripts';
my $charscripts = charscripts();
charscripts() returns a reference to a hash with the known script names as the keys, and the code point
ranges (see "charscript()") as the values.
prop_invmap("script") can be used to get this same data in a different type of data structure.
See also "Blocks versus Scripts".
charinrange()
In addition to using the "\p{Blk=...}" and "\P{Blk=...}" 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);
$range = charscript('Hiragana');
print "looks like hiragana\n" if charinrange($range, $codepoint);
general_categories()
use Unicode::UCD 'general_categories';
my $categories = general_categories();
This returns a reference to a hash which has short general category names (such as "Lu", "Nd", "Zs", "S")
as keys and long names (such as "UppercaseLetter", "DecimalNumber", "SpaceSeparator", "Symbol") as
values. The hash is reversible in case you need to go from the long names to the short names. The
general category is the one returned from "charinfo()" under the "category" key.
The "prop_value_aliases()" function can be used to get all the synonyms of the category name.
bidi_types()
use Unicode::UCD 'bidi_types';
my $categories = bidi_types();
This returns a reference to a hash which has the short bidi (bidirectional) type names (such as "L", "R")
as keys and long names (such as "Left-to-Right", "Right-to-Left") as values. The hash is reversible in
case you need to go from the long names to the short names. The bidi type is the one returned from
"charinfo()" under the "bidi" key. For the exact meaning of the various bidi classes the Unicode TR9 is
recommended reading: <http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr9/> (as of Unicode 5.0.0)
The "prop_value_aliases()" function can be used to get all the synonyms of the bidi type name.
compexcl()
use Unicode::UCD 'compexcl';
my $compexcl = compexcl(0x09dc);
This routine returns "undef" if the Unicode version being used is so early that it doesn't have this
property. It is included for backwards compatibility, but as of Perl 5.12 and more modern Unicode
versions, for most purposes it is probably more convenient to use one of the following instead:
my $compexcl = chr(0x09dc) =~ /\p{Comp_Ex};
my $compexcl = chr(0x09dc) =~ /\p{Full_Composition_Exclusion};
or even
my $compexcl = chr(0x09dc) =~ /\p{CE};
my $compexcl = chr(0x09dc) =~ /\p{Composition_Exclusion};
The first two forms return true if the "code point argument" should not be produced by composition
normalization. For the final two forms to return true, it is additionally required that this fact not
otherwise be determinable from the Unicode data base.
This routine behaves identically to the final two forms. That is, it does not return true if the code
point has a decomposition consisting of another single code point, nor if its decomposition starts with a
code point whose combining class is non-zero. Code points that meet either of these conditions should
also not be produced by composition normalization, which is probably why you should use the
"Full_Composition_Exclusion" property instead, as shown above.
The routine returns false otherwise.
casefold()
use Unicode::UCD 'casefold';
my $casefold = casefold(0xDF);
if (defined $casefold) {
my @full_fold_hex = split / /, $casefold->{'full'};
my $full_fold_string =
join "", map {chr(hex($_))} @full_fold_hex;
my @turkic_fold_hex =
split / /, ($casefold->{'turkic'} ne "")
? $casefold->{'turkic'}
: $casefold->{'full'};
my $turkic_fold_string =
join "", map {chr(hex($_))} @turkic_fold_hex;
}
if (defined $casefold && $casefold->{'simple'} ne "") {
my $simple_fold_hex = $casefold->{'simple'};
my $simple_fold_string = chr(hex($simple_fold_hex));
}
This returns the (almost) locale-independent case folding of the character specified by the "code point
argument". (Starting in Perl v5.16, the core function "fc()" returns the "full" mapping (described
below) faster than this does, and for entire strings.)
If there is no case folding for the input code point, "undef" is returned.
If there is a case folding for that code point, a reference to a hash with the following fields is
returned:
code
the input "code point argument" expressed in hexadecimal, with leading zeros added if necessary to
make it contain at least four hexdigits
full
one or more codes (separated by spaces) that, taken in order, give the code points for the case
folding for code. Each has at least four hexdigits.
simple
is empty, or is exactly one code with at least four hexdigits which can be used as an alternative
case folding when the calling program cannot cope with the fold being a sequence of multiple code
points. If full is just one code point, then simple equals full. If there is no single code point
folding defined for code, then simple is the empty string. Otherwise, it is an inferior, but still
better-than-nothing alternative folding to full.
mapping
is the same as simple if simple is not empty, and it is the same as full otherwise. It can be
considered to be the simplest possible folding for code. It is defined primarily for backwards
compatibility.
status
is "C" (for "common") if the best possible fold is a single code point (simple equals full equals
mapping). It is "S" if there are distinct folds, simple and full (mapping equals simple). And it is
"F" if there is only a full fold (mapping equals full; simple is empty). Note that this describes
the contents of mapping. It is defined primarily for backwards compatibility.
For Unicode versions between 3.1 and 3.1.1 inclusive, status can also be "I" which is the same as "C"
but is a special case for dotted uppercase I and dotless lowercase i:
* If you use this "I" mapping
the result is case-insensitive, but dotless and dotted I's are not distinguished
* If you exclude this "I" mapping
the result is not fully case-insensitive, but dotless and dotted I's are distinguished
turkic
contains any special folding for Turkic languages. For versions of Unicode starting with 3.2, this
field is empty unless code has a different folding in Turkic languages, in which case it is one or
more codes (separated by spaces) that, taken in order, give the code points for the case folding for
code in those languages. Each code has at least four hexdigits. Note that this folding does not
maintain canonical equivalence without additional processing.
For Unicode versions between 3.1 and 3.1.1 inclusive, this field is empty unless there is a special
folding for Turkic languages, in which case status is "I", and mapping, full, simple, and turkic are
all equal.
Programs that want complete generality and the best folding results should use the folding contained in
the full field. But note that the fold for some code points will be a sequence of multiple code points.
Programs that can't cope with the fold mapping being multiple code points can use the folding contained
in the simple field, with the loss of some generality. In Unicode 5.1, about 7% of the defined foldings
have no single code point folding.
The mapping and status fields are provided for backwards compatibility for existing programs. They
contain the same values as in previous versions of this function.
Locale is not completely independent. The turkic field contains results to use when the locale is a
Turkic language.
For more information about case mappings see <http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr21>
all_casefolds()
use Unicode::UCD 'all_casefolds';
my $all_folds_ref = all_casefolds();
foreach my $char_with_casefold (sort { $a <=> $b }
keys %$all_folds_ref)
{
printf "%04X:", $char_with_casefold;
my $casefold = $all_folds_ref->{$char_with_casefold};
# Get folds for $char_with_casefold
my @full_fold_hex = split / /, $casefold->{'full'};
my $full_fold_string =
join "", map {chr(hex($_))} @full_fold_hex;
print " full=", join " ", @full_fold_hex;
my @turkic_fold_hex =
split / /, ($casefold->{'turkic'} ne "")
? $casefold->{'turkic'}
: $casefold->{'full'};
my $turkic_fold_string =
join "", map {chr(hex($_))} @turkic_fold_hex;
print "; turkic=", join " ", @turkic_fold_hex;
if (defined $casefold && $casefold->{'simple'} ne "") {
my $simple_fold_hex = $casefold->{'simple'};
my $simple_fold_string = chr(hex($simple_fold_hex));
print "; simple=$simple_fold_hex";
}
print "\n";
}
This returns all the case foldings in the current version of Unicode in the form of a reference to a
hash. Each key to the hash is the decimal representation of a Unicode character that has a casefold to
other than itself. The casefold of a semi-colon is itself, so it isn't in the hash; likewise for a
lowercase "a", but there is an entry for a capital "A". The hash value for each key is another hash,
identical to what is returned by "casefold()" if called with that code point as its argument. So the
value "all_casefolds()->{ord("A")}'" is equivalent to "casefold(ord("A"))";
casespec()
use Unicode::UCD 'casespec';
my $casespec = casespec(0xFB00);
This returns the potentially locale-dependent case mappings of the "code point argument". The mappings
may be longer than a single code point (which the basic Unicode case mappings as returned by "charinfo()"
never are).
If there are no case mappings for the "code point argument", or if all three possible mappings (lower,
title and upper) result in single code points and are locale independent and unconditional, "undef" is
returned (which means that the case mappings, if any, for the code point are those returned by
"charinfo()").
Otherwise, a reference to a hash giving the mappings (or a reference to a hash of such hashes, explained
below) is returned with the following keys and their meanings:
The keys in the bottom layer hash with the meanings of their values are:
code
the input "code point argument" expressed in hexadecimal, with leading zeros added if necessary to
make it contain at least four hexdigits
lower
one or more codes (separated by spaces) that, taken in order, give the code points for the lower case
of code. Each has at least four hexdigits.
title
one or more codes (separated by spaces) that, taken in order, give the code points for the title case
of code. Each has at least four hexdigits.
upper
one or more codes (separated by spaces) that, taken in order, give the code points for the upper case
of code. Each has at least four hexdigits.
condition
the conditions for the mappings to be valid. If "undef", the mappings are always valid. When
defined, this field is a list of conditions, all of which must be true for the mappings to be valid.
The list consists of one or more locales (see below) and/or contexts (explained in the next
paragraph), separated by spaces. (Other than as used to separate elements, spaces are to be
ignored.) Case distinctions in the condition list are not significant. Conditions preceded by
"NON_" represent the negation of the condition.
A context is one of those defined in the Unicode standard. For Unicode 5.1, they are defined in
Section 3.13 "Default Case Operations" available at <http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode5.1.0/>.
These are for context-sensitive casing.
The hash described above is returned for locale-independent casing, where at least one of the mappings
has length longer than one. If "undef" is returned, the code point may have mappings, but if so, all are
length one, and are returned by "charinfo()". Note that when this function does return a value, it will
be for the complete set of mappings for a code point, even those whose length is one.
If there are additional casing rules that apply only in certain locales, an additional key for each will
be defined in the returned hash. Each such key will be its locale name, 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 all possible locales, see Locale::Country and
Locale::Language. (In Unicode 6.0, the only locales returned by this function are "lt", "tr", and "az".)
Each locale key is a reference to a hash that has the form above, and gives the casing rules for that
particular locale, which take precedence over the locale-independent ones when in that locale.
If the only casing for a code point is locale-dependent, then the returned hash will not have any of the
base keys, like "code", "upper", etc., but will contain only locale keys.
For more information about case mappings see <http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr21/>
namedseq()
use Unicode::UCD 'namedseq';
my $namedseq = namedseq("KATAKANA LETTER AINU P");
my @namedseq = namedseq("KATAKANA LETTER AINU P");
my %namedseq = namedseq();
If used with a single argument in a scalar context, returns the string consisting of the code points of
the named sequence, or "undef" if no named sequence by that name exists. If used with a single argument
in a list context, it returns the list of the ordinals of the code points. If used with no arguments in
a list context, returns a hash with the names of the named sequences as the keys and the named sequences
as strings as the values. Otherwise, it returns "undef" or an empty list depending on the context.
This function only operates on officially approved (not provisional) named sequences.
Note that as of Perl 5.14, "\N{KATAKANA LETTER AINU P}" will insert the named sequence into double-quoted
strings, and "charnames::string_vianame("KATAKANA LETTER AINU P")" will return the same string this
function does, but will also operate on character names that aren't named sequences, without you having
to know which are which. See charnames.
num()
use Unicode::UCD 'num';
my $val = num("123");
my $one_quarter = num("\N{VULGAR FRACTION 1/4}");
"num" returns the numeric value of the input Unicode string; or "undef" if it doesn't think the entire
string has a completely valid, safe numeric value.
If the string is just one character in length, the Unicode numeric value is returned if it has one, or
"undef" otherwise. Note that this need not be a whole number. "num("\N{TIBETAN DIGIT HALF ZERO}")", for
example returns -0.5.
If the string is more than one character, "undef" is returned unless all its characters are decimal
digits (that is, they would match "\d+"), from the same script. For example if you have an ASCII '0' and
a Bengali '3', mixed together, they aren't considered a valid number, and "undef" is returned. A further
restriction is that the digits all have to be of the same form. A half-width digit mixed with a full-
width one will return "undef". The Arabic script has two sets of digits; "num" will return "undef"
unless all the digits in the string come from the same set.
"num" errs on the side of safety, and there may be valid strings of decimal digits that it doesn't
recognize. Note that Unicode defines a number of "digit" characters that aren't "decimal digit"
characters. "Decimal digits" have the property that they have a positional value, i.e., there is a units
position, a 10's position, a 100's, etc, AND they are arranged in Unicode in blocks of 10 contiguous code
points. The Chinese digits, for example, are not in such a contiguous block, and so Unicode doesn't view
them as decimal digits, but merely digits, and so "\d" will not match them. A single-character string
containing one of these digits will have its decimal value returned by "num", but any longer string
containing only these digits will return "undef".
Strings of multiple sub- and superscripts are not recognized as numbers. You can use either of the
compatibility decompositions in Unicode::Normalize to change these into digits, and then call "num" on
the result.
prop_aliases()
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_aliases';
my ($short_name, $full_name, @other_names) = prop_aliases("space");
my $same_full_name = prop_aliases("Space"); # Scalar context
my ($same_short_name) = prop_aliases("Space"); # gets 0th element
print "The full name is $full_name\n";
print "The short name is $short_name\n";
print "The other aliases are: ", join(", ", @other_names), "\n";
prints:
The full name is White_Space
The short name is WSpace
The other aliases are: Space
Most Unicode properties have several synonymous names. Typically, there is at least a short name,
convenient to type, and a long name that more fully describes the property, and hence is more easily
understood.
If you know one name for a Unicode property, you can use "prop_aliases" to find either the long name
(when called in scalar context), or a list of all of the names, somewhat ordered so that the short name
is in the 0th element, the long name in the next element, and any other synonyms are in the remaining
elements, in no particular order.
The long name is returned in a form nicely capitalized, suitable for printing.
The input parameter name is loosely matched, which means that white space, hyphens, and underscores are
ignored (except for the trailing underscore in the old_form grandfathered-in "L_", which is better
written as "LC", and both of which mean "General_Category=Cased Letter").
If the name is unknown, "undef" is returned (or an empty list in list context). Note that Perl typically
recognizes property names in regular expressions with an optional ""Is_"" (with or without the
underscore) prefixed to them, such as "\p{isgc=punct}". This function does not recognize those in the
input, returning "undef". Nor are they included in the output as possible synonyms.
"prop_aliases" does know about the Perl extensions to Unicode properties, such as "Any" and
"XPosixAlpha", and the single form equivalents to Unicode properties such as "XDigit", "Greek",
"In_Greek", and "Is_Greek". The final example demonstrates that the "Is_" prefix is recognized for these
extensions; it is needed to resolve ambiguities. For example, "prop_aliases('lc')" returns the list
"(lc, Lowercase_Mapping)", but "prop_aliases('islc')" returns "(Is_LC, Cased_Letter)". This is because
"islc" is a Perl extension which is short for "General_Category=Cased Letter". The lists returned for
the Perl extensions will not include the "Is_" prefix (whether or not the input had it) unless needed to
resolve ambiguities, as shown in the "islc" example, where the returned list had one element containing
"Is_", and the other without.
It is also possible for the reverse to happen: "prop_aliases('isc')" returns the list "(isc,
ISO_Comment)"; whereas "prop_aliases('c')" returns "(C, Other)" (the latter being a Perl extension
meaning "General_Category=Other". "Properties accessible through Unicode::UCD" in perluniprops lists the
available forms, including which ones are discouraged from use.
Those discouraged forms are accepted as input to "prop_aliases", but are not returned in the lists.
"prop_aliases('isL&')" and "prop_aliases('isL_')", which are old synonyms for "Is_LC" and should not be
used in new code, are examples of this. These both return "(Is_LC, Cased_Letter)". Thus this function
allows you to take a discourarged form, and find its acceptable alternatives. The same goes with single-
form Block property equivalences. Only the forms that begin with "In_" are not discouraged; if you pass
"prop_aliases" a discouraged form, you will get back the equivalent ones that begin with "In_". It will
otherwise look like a new-style block name (see. "Old-style versus new-style block names").
"prop_aliases" does not know about any user-defined properties, and will return "undef" if called with
one of those. Likewise for Perl internal properties, with the exception of "Perl_Decimal_Digit" which it
does know about (and which is documented below in "prop_invmap()").
prop_value_aliases()
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_value_aliases';
my ($short_name, $full_name, @other_names)
= prop_value_aliases("Gc", "Punct");
my $same_full_name = prop_value_aliases("Gc", "P"); # Scalar cntxt
my ($same_short_name) = prop_value_aliases("Gc", "P"); # gets 0th
# element
print "The full name is $full_name\n";
print "The short name is $short_name\n";
print "The other aliases are: ", join(", ", @other_names), "\n";
prints:
The full name is Punctuation
The short name is P
The other aliases are: Punct
Some Unicode properties have a restricted set of legal values. For example, all binary properties are
restricted to just "true" or "false"; and there are only a few dozen possible General Categories.
For such properties, there are usually several synonyms for each possible value. For example, in binary
properties, truth can be represented by any of the strings "Y", "Yes", "T", or "True"; and the General
Category "Punctuation" by that string, or "Punct", or simply "P".
Like property names, there is typically at least a short name for each such property-value, and a long
name. If you know any name of the property-value, you can use "prop_value_aliases"() to get the long
name (when called in scalar context), or a list of all the names, with the short name in the 0th element,
the long name in the next element, and any other synonyms in the remaining elements, in no particular
order, except that any all-numeric synonyms will be last.
The long name is returned in a form nicely capitalized, suitable for printing.
Case, white space, hyphens, and underscores are ignored in the input parameters (except for the trailing
underscore in the old-form grandfathered-in general category property value "L_", which is better written
as "LC").
If either name is unknown, "undef" is returned. Note that Perl typically recognizes property names in
regular expressions with an optional ""Is_"" (with or without the underscore) prefixed to them, such as
"\p{isgc=punct}". This function does not recognize those in the property parameter, returning "undef".
If called with a property that doesn't have synonyms for its values, it returns the input value, possibly
normalized with capitalization and underscores.
For the block property, new-style block names are returned (see "Old-style versus new-style block
names").
To find the synonyms for single-forms, such as "\p{Any}", use "prop_aliases()" instead.
"prop_value_aliases" does not know about any user-defined properties, and will return "undef" if called
with one of those.
prop_invlist()
"prop_invlist" returns an inversion list (described below) that defines all the code points for the
binary Unicode property (or "property=value" pair) given by the input parameter string:
use feature 'say';
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_invlist';
say join ", ", prop_invlist("Any");
prints:
0, 1114112
If the input is unknown "undef" is returned in scalar context; an empty-list in list context. If the
input is known, the number of elements in the list is returned if called in scalar context.
perluniprops gives the list of properties that this function accepts, as well as all the possible forms
for them (including with the optional "Is_" prefixes). (Except this function doesn't accept any Perl-
internal properties, some of which are listed there.) This function uses the same loose or tighter
matching rules for resolving the input property's name as is done for regular expressions. These are
also specified in perluniprops. Examples of using the "property=value" form are:
say join ", ", prop_invlist("Script=Shavian");
prints:
66640, 66688
say join ", ", prop_invlist("ASCII_Hex_Digit=No");
prints:
0, 48, 58, 65, 71, 97, 103
say join ", ", prop_invlist("ASCII_Hex_Digit=Yes");
prints:
48, 58, 65, 71, 97, 103
Inversion lists are a compact way of specifying Unicode property-value definitions. The 0th item in the
list is the lowest code point that has the property-value. The next item (item [1]) is the lowest code
point beyond that one that does NOT have the property-value. And the next item beyond that ([2]) is the
lowest code point beyond that one that does have the property-value, and so on. Put another way, each
element in the list gives the beginning of a range that has the property-value (for even numbered
elements), or doesn't have the property-value (for odd numbered elements). The name for this data
structure stems from the fact that each element in the list toggles (or inverts) whether the
corresponding range is or isn't on the list.
In the final example above, the first ASCII Hex digit is code point 48, the character "0", and all code
points from it through 57 (a "9") are ASCII hex digits. Code points 58 through 64 aren't, but 65 (an
"A") through 70 (an "F") are, as are 97 ("a") through 102 ("f"). 103 starts a range of code points that
aren't ASCII hex digits. That range extends to infinity, which on your computer can be found in the
variable $Unicode::UCD::MAX_CP. (This variable is as close to infinity as Perl can get on your platform,
and may be too high for some operations to work; you may wish to use a smaller number for your purposes.)
Note that the inversion lists returned by this function can possibly include non-Unicode code points,
that is anything above 0x10FFFF. This is in contrast to Perl regular expression matches on those code
points, in which a non-Unicode code point always fails to match. For example, both of these have the
same result:
chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=True} # Fails.
chr(0x110000) =~ \p{ASCII_Hex_Digit=False} # Fails!
And both raise a warning that a Unicode property is being used on a non-Unicode code point. It is
arguable as to which is the correct thing to do here. This function has chosen the way opposite to the
Perl regular expression behavior. This allows you to easily flip to to the Perl regular expression way
(for you to go in the other direction would be far harder). Simply add 0x110000 at the end of the non-
empty returned list if it isn't already that value; and pop that value if it is; like:
my @list = prop_invlist("foo");
if (@list) {
if ($list[-1] == 0x110000) {
pop @list; # Defeat the turning on for above Unicode
}
else {
push @list, 0x110000; # Turn off for above Unicode
}
}
It is a simple matter to expand out an inversion list to a full list of all code points that have the
property-value:
my @invlist = prop_invlist($property_name);
die "empty" unless @invlist;
my @full_list;
for (my $i = 0; $i < @invlist; $i += 2) {
my $upper = ($i + 1) < @invlist
? $invlist[$i+1] - 1 # In range
: $Unicode::UCD::MAX_CP; # To infinity. You may want
# to stop much much earlier;
# going this high may expose
# perl deficiencies with very
# large numbers.
for my $j ($invlist[$i] .. $upper) {
push @full_list, $j;
}
}
"prop_invlist" does not know about any user-defined nor Perl internal-only properties, and will return
"undef" if called with one of those.
prop_invmap()
use Unicode::UCD 'prop_invmap';
my ($list_ref, $map_ref, $format, $missing)
= prop_invmap("General Category");
"prop_invmap" is used to get the complete mapping definition for a property, in the form of an inversion
map. An inversion map consists of two parallel arrays. One is an ordered list of code points that mark
range beginnings, and the other gives the value (or mapping) that all code points in the corresponding
range have.
"prop_invmap" is called with the name of the desired property. The name is loosely matched, meaning that
differences in case, white-space, hyphens, and underscores are not meaningful (except for the trailing
underscore in the old-form grandfathered-in property "L_", which is better written as "LC", or even
better, "Gc=LC").
Many Unicode properties have more than one name (or alias). "prop_invmap" understands all of these,
including Perl extensions to them. Ambiguities are resolved as described above for "prop_aliases()".
The Perl internal property "Perl_Decimal_Digit, described below, is also accepted. "undef" is returned
if the property name is unknown. See "Properties accessible through Unicode::UCD" in perluniprops for
the properties acceptable as inputs to this function.
It is a fatal error to call this function except in list context.
In addition to the the two arrays that form the inversion map, "prop_invmap" returns two other values;
one is a scalar that gives some details as to the format of the entries of the map array; the other is
used for specialized purposes, described at the end of this section.
This means that "prop_invmap" returns a 4 element list. For example,
my ($blocks_ranges_ref, $blocks_maps_ref, $format, $default)
= prop_invmap("Block");
In this call, the two arrays will be populated as shown below (for Unicode 6.0):
Index @blocks_ranges @blocks_maps
0 0x0000 Basic Latin
1 0x0080 Latin-1 Supplement
2 0x0100 Latin Extended-A
3 0x0180 Latin Extended-B
4 0x0250 IPA Extensions
5 0x02B0 Spacing Modifier Letters
6 0x0300 Combining Diacritical Marks
7 0x0370 Greek and Coptic
8 0x0400 Cyrillic
...
233 0x2B820 No_Block
234 0x2F800 CJK Compatibility Ideographs Supplement
235 0x2FA20 No_Block
236 0xE0000 Tags
237 0xE0080 No_Block
238 0xE0100 Variation Selectors Supplement
239 0xE01F0 No_Block
240 0xF0000 Supplementary Private Use Area-A
241 0x100000 Supplementary Private Use Area-B
242 0x110000 No_Block
The first line (with Index [0]) means that the value for code point 0 is "Basic Latin". The entry
"0x0080" in the @blocks_ranges column in the second line means that the value from the first line, "Basic
Latin", extends to all code points in the range from 0 up to but not including 0x0080, that is, through
127. In other words, the code points from 0 to 127 are all in the "Basic Latin" block. Similarly, all
code points in the range from 0x0080 up to (but not including) 0x0100 are in the block named "Latin-1
Supplement", etc. (Notice that the return is the old-style block names; see "Old-style versus new-style
block names").
The final line (with Index [242]) means that the value for all code points above the legal Unicode
maximum code point have the value "No_Block", which is the term Unicode uses for a non-existing block.
The arrays completely specify the mappings for all possible code points. The final element in an
inversion map returned by this function will always be for the range that consists of all the code points
that aren't legal Unicode, but that are expressible on the platform. (That is, it starts with code point
0x110000, the first code point above the legal Unicode maximum, and extends to infinity.) The value for
that range will be the same that any typical unassigned code point has for the specified property.
(Certain unassigned code points are not "typical"; for example the non-character code points, or those in
blocks that are to be written right-to-left. The above-Unicode range's value is not based on these
atypical code points.) It could be argued that, instead of treating these as unassigned Unicode code
points, the value for this range should be "undef". If you wish, you can change the returned arrays
accordingly.
The maps are almost always simple scalars that should be interpreted as-is. These values are those given
in the Unicode-supplied data files, which may be inconsistent as to capitalization and as to which
synonym for a property-value is given. The results may be normalized by using the "prop_value_aliases()"
function.
There are exceptions to the simple scalar maps. Some properties have some elements in their map list
that are themselves lists of scalars; and some special strings are returned that are not to be
interpreted as-is. Element [2] (placed into $format in the example above) of the returned four element
list tells you if the map has any of these special elements or not, as follows:
"s" means all the elements of the map array are simple scalars, with no special elements. Almost all
properties are like this, like the "block" example above.
"sl"
means that some of the map array elements have the form given by "s", and the rest are lists of
scalars. For example, here is a portion of the output of calling "prop_invmap"() with the "Script
Extensions" property:
@scripts_ranges @scripts_maps
...
0x0953 Devanagari
0x0964 [ Bengali, Devanagari, Gurumukhi, Oriya ]
0x0966 Devanagari
0x0970 Common
Here, the code points 0x964 and 0x965 are both used in Bengali, Devanagari, Gurmukhi, and Oriya, but
no other scripts.
The Name_Alias property is also of this form. But each scalar consists of two components: 1) the
name, and 2) the type of alias this is. They are separated by a colon and a space. In Unicode 6.1,
there are several alias types:
"correction"
indicates that the name is a corrected form for the original name (which remains valid) for the
same code point.
"control"
adds a new name for a control character.
"alternate"
is an alternate name for a character
"figment"
is a name for a character that has been documented but was never in any actual standard.
"abbreviation"
is a common abbreviation for a character
The lists are ordered (roughly) so the most preferred names come before less preferred ones.
For example,
@aliases_ranges @alias_maps
...
0x009E [ 'PRIVACY MESSAGE: control', 'PM: abbreviation' ]
0x009F [ 'APPLICATION PROGRAM COMMAND: control',
'APC: abbreviation'
]
0x00A0 'NBSP: abbreviation'
0x00A1 ""
0x00AD 'SHY: abbreviation'
0x00AE ""
0x01A2 'LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GHA: correction'
0x01A3 'LATIN SMALL LETTER GHA: correction'
0x01A4 ""
...
A map to the empty string means that there is no alias defined for the code point.
"a" is like "s" in that all the map array elements are scalars, but here they are restricted to all being
integers, and some have to be adjusted (hence the name "a") to get the correct result. For example,
in:
my ($uppers_ranges_ref, $uppers_maps_ref, $format)
= prop_invmap("Simple_Uppercase_Mapping");
the returned arrays look like this:
@$uppers_ranges_ref @$uppers_maps_ref Note
0 0
97 65 'a' maps to 'A', b => B ...
123 0
181 924 MICRO SIGN => Greek Cap MU
182 0
...
Let's start with the second line. It says that the uppercase of code point 97 is 65; or "uc("a")" ==
"A". But the line is for the entire range of code points 97 through 122. To get the mapping for any
code point in a range, you take the offset it has from the beginning code point of the range, and add
that to the mapping for that first code point. So, the mapping for 122 ("z") is derived by taking
the offset of 122 from 97 (=25) and adding that to 65, yielding 90 ("z"). Likewise for everything in
between.
The first line works the same way. The first map in a range is always the correct value for its code
point (because the adjustment is 0). Thus the "uc(chr(0))" is just itself. Also, "uc(chr(1))" is
also itself, as the adjustment is 0+1-0 .. "uc(chr(96))" is 96.
Requiring this simple adjustment allows the returned arrays to be significantly smaller than
otherwise, up to a factor of 10, speeding up searching through them.
"al"
means that some of the map array elements have the form given by "a", and the rest are ordered lists
of code points. For example, in:
my ($uppers_ranges_ref, $uppers_maps_ref, $format)
= prop_invmap("Uppercase_Mapping");
the returned arrays look like this:
@$uppers_ranges_ref @$uppers_maps_ref
0 0
97 65
123 0
181 924
182 0
...
0x0149 [ 0x02BC 0x004E ]
0x014A 0
0x014B 330
...
This is the full Uppercase_Mapping property (as opposed to the Simple_Uppercase_Mapping given in the
example for format "a"). The only difference between the two in the ranges shown is that the code
point at 0x0149 (LATIN SMALL LETTER N PRECEDED BY APOSTROPHE) maps to a string of two characters,
0x02BC (MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE) followed by 0x004E (LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N).
No adjustments are needed to entries that are references to arrays; each such entry will have exactly
one element in its range, so the offset is always 0.
"ae"
This is like "a", but some elements are the empty string, and should not be adjusted. The one
internal Perl property accessible by "prop_invmap" is of this type: "Perl_Decimal_Digit" returns an
inversion map which gives the numeric values that are represented by the Unicode decimal digit
characters. Characters that don't represent decimal digits map to the empty string, like so:
@digits @values
0x0000 ""
0x0030 0
0x003A: ""
0x0660: 0
0x066A: ""
0x06F0: 0
0x06FA: ""
0x07C0: 0
0x07CA: ""
0x0966: 0
...
This means that the code points from 0 to 0x2F do not represent decimal digits; the code point 0x30
(DIGIT ZERO) represents 0; code point 0x31, (DIGIT ONE), represents 0+1-0 = 1; ... code point 0x39,
(DIGIT NINE), represents 0+9-0 = 9; ... code points 0x3A through 0x65F do not represent decimal
digits; 0x660 (ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT ZERO), represents 0; ... 0x07C1 (NKO DIGIT ONE), represents 0+1-0 =
1 ...
"ale"
is a combination of the "al" type and the "ae" type. Some of the map array elements have the forms
given by "al", and the rest are the empty string. The property "NFKC_Casefold" has this form. An
example slice is:
@$ranges_ref @$maps_ref Note
...
0x00AA 97 FEMININE ORDINAL INDICATOR => 'a'
0x00AB 0
0x00AD SOFT HYPHEN => ""
0x00AE 0
0x00AF [ 0x0020, 0x0304 ] MACRON => SPACE . COMBINING MACRON
0x00B0 0
...
"ar"
means that all the elements of the map array are either rational numbers or the string "NaN", meaning
"Not a Number". A rational number is either an integer, or two integers separated by a solidus
("/"). The second integer represents the denominator of the division implied by the solidus, and is
actually always positive, so it is guaranteed not to be 0 and to not be signed. When the element is
a plain integer (without the solidus), it may need to be adjusted to get the correct value by adding
the offset, just as other "a" properties. No adjustment is needed for fractions, as the range is
guaranteed to have just a single element, and so the offset is always 0.
If you want to convert the returned map to entirely scalar numbers, you can use something like this:
my ($invlist_ref, $invmap_ref, $format) = prop_invmap($property);
if ($format && $format eq "ar") {
map { $_ = eval $_ if $_ ne 'NaN' } @$map_ref;
}
Here's some entries from the output of the property "Nv", which has format "ar".
@numerics_ranges @numerics_maps Note
0x00 "NaN"
0x30 0 DIGIT 0 .. DIGIT 9
0x3A "NaN"
0xB2 2 SUPERSCRIPTs 2 and 3
0xB4 "NaN"
0xB9 1 SUPERSCRIPT 1
0xBA "NaN"
0xBC 1/4 VULGAR FRACTION 1/4
0xBD 1/2 VULGAR FRACTION 1/2
0xBE 3/4 VULGAR FRACTION 3/4
0xBF "NaN"
0x660 0 ARABIC-INDIC DIGIT ZERO .. NINE
0x66A "NaN"
"n" means the Name property. All the elements of the map array are simple scalars, but some of them
contain special strings that require more work to get the actual name.
Entries such as:
CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-<code point>
mean that the name for the code point is "CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-" with the code point (expressed in
hexadecimal) appended to it, like "CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH-3403" (similarly for
"CJK COMPATIBILITY IDEOGRAPH-<code point>").
Also, entries like
<hangul syllable>
means that the name is algorithmically calculated. This is easily done by the function
"charnames::viacode(code)" in charnames.
Note that for control characters ("Gc=cc"), Unicode's data files have the string ""<control>"", but
the real name of each of these characters is the empty string. This function returns that real name,
the empty string. (There are names for these characters, but they are considered aliases, not the
Name property name, and are contained in the "Name_Alias" property.)
"ad"
means the Decomposition_Mapping property. This property is like "al" properties, except that one of
the scalar elements is of the form:
<hangul syllable>
This signifies that this entry should be replaced by the decompositions for all the code points whose
decomposition is algorithmically calculated. (All of them are currently in one range and no others
outisde the range are likely to ever be added to Unicode; the "n" format has this same entry.) These
can be generated via the function Unicode::Normalize::NFD().
Note that the mapping is the one that is specified in the Unicode data files, and to get the final
decomposition, it may need to be applied recursively.
Note that a format begins with the letter "a" if and only the property it is for requires adjustments by
adding the offsets in multi-element ranges. For all these properties, an entry should be adjusted only
if the map is a scalar which is an integer. That is, it must match the regular expression:
/ ^ -? \d+ $ /xa
Further, the first element in a range never needs adjustment, as the adjustment would be just adding 0.
A binary search can be used to quickly find a code point in the inversion list, and hence its
corresponding mapping.
The final element (index [3], assigned to $default in the "block" example) in the four element list
returned by this function may be useful for applications that wish to convert the returned inversion map
data structure into some other, such as a hash. It gives the mapping that most code points map to under
the property. If you establish the convention that any code point not explicitly listed in your data
structure maps to this value, you can potentially make your data structure much smaller. As you
construct your data structure from the one returned by this function, simply ignore those ranges that map
to this value, generally called the "default" value. For example, to convert to the data structure
searchable by "charinrange()", you can follow this recipe for properties that don't require adjustments:
my ($list_ref, $map_ref, $format, $missing) = prop_invmap($property);
my @range_list;
# Look at each element in the list, but the -2 is needed because we
# look at $i+1 in the loop, and the final element is guaranteed to map
# to $missing by prop_invmap(), so we would skip it anyway.
for my $i (0 .. @$list_ref - 2) {
next if $map_ref->[$i] eq $missing;
push @range_list, [ $list_ref->[$i],
$list_ref->[$i+1],
$map_ref->[$i]
];
}
print charinrange(\@range_list, $code_point), "\n";
With this, "charinrange()" will return "undef" if its input code point maps to $missing. You can avoid
this by omitting the "next" statement, and adding a line after the loop to handle the final element of
the inversion map.
Similarly, this recipe can be used for properties that do require adjustments:
for my $i (0 .. @$list_ref - 2) {
next if $map_ref->[$i] eq $missing;
# prop_invmap() guarantees that if the mapping is to an array, the
# range has just one element, so no need to worry about adjustments.
if (ref $map_ref->[$i]) {
push @range_list,
[ $list_ref->[$i], $list_ref->[$i], $map_ref->[$i] ];
}
else { # Otherwise each element is actually mapped to a separate
# value, so the range has to be split into single code point
# ranges.
my $adjustment = 0;
# For each code point that gets mapped to something...
for my $j ($list_ref->[$i] .. $list_ref->[$i+1] -1 ) {
# ... add a range consisting of just it mapping to the
# original plus the adjustment, which is incremented for the
# next time through the loop, as the offset increases by 1
# for each element in the range
push @range_list,
[ $j, $j, $map_ref->[$i] + $adjustment++ ];
}
}
}
Note that the inversion maps returned for the "Case_Folding" and "Simple_Case_Folding" properties do not
include the Turkic-locale mappings. Use "casefold()" for these.
"prop_invmap" does not know about any user-defined properties, and will return "undef" if called with one
of those.
Unicode::UCD::UnicodeVersion
This 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 ('.').
Blocks versus Scripts
The difference between a block and a script is that scripts are closer to the linguistic notion of a set
of code points required to present languages, while block is more of an artifact of the Unicode code
point numbering and separation into blocks of consecutive code points (so far the size of a block is some
multiple of 16, like 128 or 256).
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 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{Blk=...}" is used for blocks (e.g. "\p{Blk=Tibetan}" matches
any of the 256 code points in the Tibetan block).
Old-style versus new-style block names
Unicode publishes the names of blocks in two different styles, though the two are equivalent under
Unicode's loose matching rules.
The original style uses blanks and hyphens in the block names (except for "No_Block"), like so:
Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B
The newer style replaces these with underscores, like this:
Miscellaneous_Mathematical_Symbols_B
This newer style is consistent with the values of other Unicode properties. To preserve backward
compatibility, all the functions in Unicode::UCD that return block names (except one) return the old-
style ones. That one function, "prop_value_aliases()" can be used to convert from old-style to new-
style:
my $new_style = prop_values_aliases("block", $old_style);
Perl also has single-form extensions that refer to blocks, "In_Cyrillic", meaning "Block=Cyrillic".
These have always been written in the new style.
To convert from new-style to old-style, follow this recipe:
$old_style = charblock((prop_invlist("block=$new_style"))[0]);
(which finds the range of code points in the block using "prop_invlist", gets the lower end of the range
(0th element) and then looks up the old name for its block using "charblock").
Note that starting in Unicode 6.1, many of the block names have shorter synonyms. These are always given
in the new style.
BUGS
Does not yet support EBCDIC platforms.
AUTHOR
Jarkko Hietaniemi. Now maintained by perl5 porters.
perl v5.18.2 2014-01-06 Unicode::UCD(3perl)