Unicode::MapUTF8 - Conversions to and from arbitrary character sets and UTF8

 use Unicode::MapUTF8 qw(to_utf8 from_utf8 utf8_supported_charset);

 # Convert a string in 'ISO-8859-1' to 'UTF8'
 my $output = to_utf8({ -string => 'An example', -charset => 'ISO-8859-1' });

 # Convert a string in 'UTF8' encoding to encoding 'ISO-8859-1'
 my $other  = from_utf8({ -string => 'Other text', -charset => 'ISO-8859-1' });

 # List available character set encodings
 my @character_sets = utf8_supported_charset;

 # Add a character set alias
 utf8_charset_alias({ 'ms-japanese' => 'sjis' });

 # Convert between two arbitrary (but largely compatible) charset encodings
 # (SJIS to EUC-JP)
 my $utf8_string   = to_utf8({ -string =>$sjis_string, -charset => 'sjis'});
 my $euc_jp_string = from_utf8({ -string => $utf8_string, -charset => 'euc-jp' })

 # Verify that a specific character set is supported
 if (utf8_supported_charset('ISO-8859-1') {
     # Yes
 }

Provides an adapter layer between core routines for converting to and from UTF8 and other encodings. In essence, a way to give multiple existing Unicode modules a single common interface so you don't have to know the underlaying implementations to do simple UTF8 to-from other character set encoding conversions. As such, it wraps the Unicode::String, Unicode::Map8, Unicode::Map and Jcode modules in a standardized and simple API.

This also provides general character set conversion operation based on UTF8 - it is possible to convert between any two compatible and supported character sets via a simple two step chaining of conversions.

As with most things Perlish - if you give it a few big chunks of text to chew on instead of lots of small ones it will handle many more characters per second.

By design, it can be easily extended to encompass any new charset encoding conversion modules that arrive on the scene.

1.09 2001.08.22 - Fixed multiple typo occurances of 'uft' where 'utf' was meant in code. Problem affected utf16 and utf7 encodings. Problem found by devon smith <devon@taller.PSCL.cwru.edu>

1.08 2000.11.06 - Added 'utf8_charset_alias' function to allow for runtime setting of character set aliases. Added several alternate names for 'sjis' (shiftjis, shift-jis, shift_jis, s-jis, and s_jis).

                  Corrected 'croak' messages for
                  'from_utf8' functions to appropriate
                  function name.

                  Tightened up initialization encapsulation

                  Corrected fatal problem in jcode from
                  unicode internals. Problem and fix
                  found by Brian Wisti <wbrian2@uswest.net>.

1.07 2000.11.01 - Added 'croak' to use Carp declaration to fix error messages. Problem and fix found by Brian Wisti <wbrian2@uswest.net>.

1.06 2000.10.30 - Fix to handle change in stringification of overloaded objects between Perl 5.005 and 5.6. Problem noticed by Brian Wisti <wbrian2@uswest.net>.

1.05 2000.10.23 - Error in conversions from UTF8 to multibyte encodings corrected

1.04 2000.10.23 - Additional diagnostic messages added for internal error conditions

1.03 2000.10.22 - Bug fix for load time autodetction of Unicode::Map8 encodings

1.02 2000.10.22 - Added load time autodetection of Unicode::Map8 supported character set encodings.

                  Fixed internal calling error for some
                  character sets with 'from_utf8'. Thanks
                  goes to Ilia Lobsanov
                  <ilia@lobsanov.com> for reporting this
                  problem.

1.01 2000.10.02 - Fixed handling of empty strings and added more identification for error messages.

1.00 2000.09.29 - Pre-release version

Used for runtime assignment of character set aliases. Called with no parameters, returns a hash of defined aliases and the character sets they map to. Example:

  my $aliases     = utf8_charset_alias;
  my @alias_names = keys %$aliases;

    if (! utf8_charset_alias('VISCII')) {
        # No alias for this
    }

    utf8_charset_alias({ 'japanese' => 'sjis', 'japan' => 'sjis' });

    utf8_charset_alias({ 'japanese' => undef });

utf8_supported_charset($charset_name);

Returns true if the named charset is supported (including user defiend aliases). Returns false if it is not. Example:

    if (! utf8_supported_charset('VISCII')) {
        # No support yet
    }

If called in a list context with no parameters, it will return a list of all supported character set names (including user defined aliases). Example:

    my @charsets = utf8_supported_charset;

Returns the string converted to UTF8 from the specified source charset. Returns the string converted from UTF8 to the specified target charset.

1.09 2001.08.22

Copyright September, 2000 Benjamin Franz. All rights reserved.

This software is free software. You can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

Benjamin Franz <snowhare@nihongo.org>

Regression tests for Jcode, 2-byte encodings and encoding aliases

Unicode::String Unicode::Map8 Unicode::Map Jcode