NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

Classic Style:

    use Locale::Language;  # use environment language


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


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

Classic Style With New Default Language:

    use utf8;
    use Locale::Language ( 'de' );  # use German language


    my $lang  = code2language ( 'en' );           # $lang gets 'Englisch'
    my $code  = language2code ( 'Französisch' );  # $code gets 'fr'


    my @codes = all_language_codes();
    my @names = all_language_names();  # gets list of names in German

    # set default Language to French
    Locales::Language::setLocale ( 'fr' );


    $lang  = code2language ( 'en' );              # $lang gets 'Anglais'
    $code  = language2code ( 'Français' );        # $code gets 'fr'

Object Oriented Style:

    use utf8;
    require Locales::Language;

    my $am = new Locales::Language ( "am" );
    my $de = new Locales::Language ( "de" );

    print $am->getLocale, " => ",
          $am->code2language ( "en" ), " / ",
          $am->language2code ( "እንግሊዝኛ" ), "\n";
    print $de->getLocale, " => ",
          $de->code2language ( "en" ), " / ",
          $de->language2code ( "Englisch" ), "\n";

    my @codes   = $am->all_language_codes();
    my @deNames = $de->all_language_names();

Object Oriented Style With New Default Language:

    use utf8;
    use Locale::Language ( 'de' );  # use German language

    my $de = new Locales::Language;

    print $de->getLocale, " => ",
          $de->code2language ( "en" ), " / ",
          $de->language2code ( "Englisch" ), "\n";

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 functions 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.

BUGS AND LIMITATIONS

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

COPYRIGHT


Portions of the documentation of the module come directly from L<Locale::Language>
which was composed by Neil Bowers and contains the following copyright:


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.

AUTHOR

Daniel Yacob, dyacob@cpan.org

Neil Bowers neil@bowers.com (Documentation)