Locale::Codes::Changes(3)

NAME
Locale::Codes::Changes - details important changes after 2.07

3.10

Changed XXX_code2code behavior slightly
    In previous versions, passing in the same code set for both code set arguments would automatically return undef. For example:

       country_code2code('bo',LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2,LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
          => undef

    This doesn't seem like reasonable behavior, so it has been changed to allow the same code set:

       country_code2code('bo',LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2,LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
          => 'bo'

    Note that if an invalid code is passed in, undef will still be returned:

       country_code2code('bol',LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2,LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
          => undef

Added many semi-private routines
    Previous versions had only two semi-private routines: rename_country and alias_code which had the ability to modify the internal data in a couple very limited ways. It was requested (in an anonymous posting by someone named Steve and also by Steve Hay) that better support for modifying internal data, so a full set of routines were added.

    The full set of routines includes:

       rename_country
       rename_language
       rename_currency
       rename_script

       add_country
       add_language
       add_currency
       add_script

       delete_country
       delete_language
       delete_currency
       delete_script

       add_country_alias
       add_language_alias
       add_currency_alias
       add_script_alias

       delete_country_alias
       delete_language_alias
       delete_currency_alias
       delete_script_alias

       rename_country_code
       rename_language_code
       rename_currency_code
       rename_script_code

       add_country_code_alias
       add_language_code_alias
       add_currency_code_alias
       add_script_code_alias

       delete_country_code_alias
       delete_language_code_alias
       delete_currency_code_alias
       delete_script_code_alias

3.00

New maintainer
    From 1997 to 2004, Locale::Codes was maintained by Neil Bowers. Unfortunately, no updates were made from June 2004 to January 2010. During that time, a number of changes have been made to the standards since then, so the data included was out-of-date.

    I contacted Neil to get his permission to assume maintenance of the module, and he kindly agreed.

All codes are generated from standards
    All of the values returned by the various functions are now values directly from the standards. This means that the values returned in the 2.xx series are not necessarily the same as the values returned here.

    As an example, the ISO 3166 standard which lists country codes refers to the country associated with the code "bo" as "Bolivia, Plurinational State of", so that is what is returned. In the 2.xx series, "Bolivia" was returned. Also, the country names vary from one standard to another. So the code "bol" which is maintained by the United Nations returns the name of the country as "Bolivia (Plurinational State of)". Some common aliases have been added, so you can still request a code associated with a county name "Bolivia".

    Since the data comes from the standards, some "incorrect" values are no longer supported. For example, 2.07 treated "Zaire" as an alias for "Congo", but the country changed it's name, and "Zaire" is not in the standard, so it has been dropped in 3.00.

Added several code sets from standards
    I've added the following code sets:

       FIPS 10 country codes
       Alpha-3 and Term language codes
       Numeric currency codes

Locale::Script changed
    In 2.xx, Locale::Script assigned scripts to country codes, which is NOT how it is done currently in the standards. It appears that an older version of ISO 15924 did this, but I haven't found an old version to confirm that, and in any case, that is not the case in the current standards.

    As a result, the Locale::Script module is completely incompatible with the 2.xx version with respect to the types of codes it supports. None of the old codes will work.

Added missing functions
    I've added in some functions which were "missing" previously (since there was only one set of codes supported, the code2code functions didn't apply):

       language_code2code
       currency_code2code

    so the interfaces for each type of codes are consistent.

Dropped support for _alias_code
    In Locale::Country, _alias_code was an allowed, but deprecated function which was documented to be supported in the 2.xx series. I've removed it.

SEE ALSO
Locale::Codes

AUTHOR
See Locale::Codes for full author history.

Currently maintained by Sullivan Beck (sbeck@cpan.org).

COPYRIGHT
   Copyright (c) 2010-2011 Sullivan Beck

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