International Components for Unicode
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ICU Home Page
What is ICU?
ICU is a mature, widely used set of C/C++ and Java libraries providing Unicode and Globalization support for software applications. ICU is widely portable and gives applications the same results on all platforms and between C/C++ and Java software.
ICU is released under a nonrestrictive open source license that is suitable for use with both commercial software and with other open source or free software.
Here are a few highlights of the services provided by ICU:
- Code Page Conversion: Convert text data to or from Unicode and
nearly any other character set or encoding. ICU's conversion
tables are based on charset data collected by IBM over the course of
many decades, and is the most complete available anywhere.
- Collation: Compare strings according to the conventions and
standards of a particular language, region or country. ICU's collation
is based on the Unicode Collation Algorithm plus locale-specific
comparison rules from the Common
Locale Data Repository, a comprehensive source for this type of data.
- Formatting: Format numbers, dates, times and currency amounts
according the conventions of a chosen locale. This includes
translating month and day names into the selected language, choosing
appropriate abbreviations, ordering fields correctly, etc.
This data also comes from the Common Locale Data Repository.
- Time Calculations: Multiple types of calendars are provided beyond
the traditional Gregorian calendar. A thorough set of timezone calculation
APIs are provided.
- Unicode Support: ICU closely tracks the Unicode standard, providing
easy access to all of the many Unicode character properties, Unicode
Normalization, Case Folding and other fundamental operations as specified
by the Unicode Standard.
- Regular Expression: ICU's regular expressions fully support Unicode
while providing very competitive performance.
- Bidi: support for handling text containing a mixture of left to right
(English) and right to left (Arabic or Hebrew) data.
- Text Boundaries: Locate the positions of words, sentences,
paragraphs within a range of text, or identify locations that
would be suitable for line wrapping when displaying the text.
And much more. Refer to the ICU User Guide for details.
Where is ICU?
You are at the home of the ICU project, http://icu-project.org/
The navigation bar on the left provides quick access to the content of this site. Here are some commonly used links.
Why Unicode?
Unicode (and the parallel ISO 10646 standard) defines the character set necessary for efficiently processing text in any language and for maintaining text data integrity. In addition to global character coverage, the Unicode standard is unique among character set standards because it also defines data and algorithms for efficient and consistent text processing. This simplifies high-level processing and ensures that all conformant software produces the same results. The widespread adoption of Unicode over the last decade made text data truly portable and formed a cornerstone of the Internet.
Globalized software, based on Unicode, maximizes market reach and minimizes cost. Globalized software is built and installed once and yet handles text for and from users worldwide and accomodates their cultural conventions. It minimizes cost by eliminating per-language builds, installations, and maintenance updates.
Why ICU4C?
The C and C++ languages and many operating system environments do not provide full support for Unicode and standards-compliant text handling services. Even though some platforms do provide good Unicode text handling services, portable application code can not make use of them. The ICU4C libraries fills in this gap. ICU4C provides an open, flexible, portable foundation for applications to use for their software globalization requirements. ICU4C closely tracks industry standards, including Unicode and CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository).
Why ICU4J?
Java provides a very strong foundation for global programs, and IBM and the ICU team played a key role in providing globalization technology into Sun's Java. But because of its long release schedule, Java cannot always keep up-to-date with evolving standards. The ICU team continues to extend Java's Unicode and internationalization support, focusing on improving performance, keeping current with the Unicode standard, and providing richer APIs, while remaining as compatible as possible with the original Java text and internationalization API design.
ICU4JNI
New versions of ICU4JNI are no longer being created. If you need the functionality of ICU4JNI, you should consider migrating to ICU4J.
Who Uses ICU?
The following is a list of products, companies and organizations using ICU. If you have any feedback on this list (corrections, additions, or details), please contact us.
Products from IBM
Ascential Software, Cognos, PSD Print Architecture, DB2, COBOL, Host Access Client, InfoPrint Manager, Informix GLS, iSeries, Language Analysis Systems, Lotus Notes, Lotus Extended Search, Lotus Workplace, WebSphere Business Integration brokers, NUMA-Q, OTI, OmniFind, Pervasive Computing WECMS, SS&S Websphere Banking Solutions, Tivoli Presentation Services, WBI Adapter/ Connect/Modeler and Monitor/ Solution Technology Development/WBI-Financial TePI, Websphere Application Server/ Studio Workload Simulator/Transcoding Publisher, XML Parser.
Other Companies and Organizations
ABAS Software, Adobe, Apple (Mac OS X), Amdocs, Apache Xalan XSLT, Apache Xerces XML, Argonne National Laboratory, Avaya, BAE Systems Geospatial eXploitation Products, BEA, BroadJump, BluePhoenix Solutions, BMC Software, Boost, Business Objects, caris, CERN, Debian Linux, Dell, Eclipse, eBay, ESRI, Free BSD, Gentoo Linux, Google, GTK+, HP, Hyperion, Inktomi, Innodata Isogen, Informatica, Intel, Interlogics, IONA, IXOS, Jikes, Mathworks, Mozilla, OpenOffice, Lawson Software, Leica Geosystems GIS & Mapping LLC, Mandrake Linux, Progress Software, Python, QNX, Rogue Wave, SAP, SIL, SPSS, Software AG, Sun Microsystems (Solaris, Java), SuSE, Sybase, Symantec, Teradata (NCR), Trend Micro, Virage, webMethods, Wine, WMS Gaming, Yahoo!... and many others.
Related ICU Projects
There are also some related projects that wrap the existing functionality of ICU.