GettingStartedWithICUPartI.docVIP

Getting Started With ICU Part I Introduction The ICU library is a very powerful tool for solving globalization tasks. This paper provides reader with instructions for obtaining and setting up both ICU4J and ICU4C libraries. Several important frameworks of ICU are also introduced: conversion, collation, message format and break iteration. Usage examples are given for each framework. In the interest of text complexity and size, each framework is represented in one library – conversion in ICU4C (there is no ICU4J conversion engine), collation and message formatting in ICU4J and break iteration again in ICU4C. However, all four frameworks are used in an example – locale aware and Unicode enable word count program – UCount. This example is provided in both C++ and Java. Using the Conversion Engine in ICU4C The first task is converting a body of text encoded using a known code page to Unicode and converting it back to the code page text. Getting ICU4C There are several ways to get ICU. First of all, you want to visit /icu/. On the download page you can find all the ICU releases. The safest bet is to use the latest release. ICU versions are numbered with two digits, such as 2.8 or 3.0. Most of the releases are major (“reference”) releases. Round numbers do not mean that a release is more significant than the others (in other words, amount of changes for 2.8 is probably about the same as the amount of changes for 3.0). Some of the reference releases have maintenance releases (such as 2.6.2). If your platform is listed on the binary download list, it will probably be the easiest to pick a binary package. This option gives you a ready to use ICU library. You might also want to try the source package. Having a source package allows you to change build options, build only the parts of ICU that you really need, choose the data packaging options, etc. Readme.html file is a good resource to find out different modes of building. We also provide a CVS access to our library. All the