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man : Locale::Country(3p)
Locale::Country(3Perl Programmers Reference GuLocale::Country(3p)
NAME
Locale::Country - ISO codes for country identification
(ISO 3166)
SYNOPSIS
use Locale::Country;
$country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan'
$code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no'
@codes = all_country_codes();
@names = all_country_names();
# semi-private routines
Locale::Country::alias_code('uk' => 'gb');
Locale::Country::rename_country('gb' => 'Great Britain');
DESCRIPTION
The "Locale::Country" module provides access to the ISO
codes for identifying countries, as defined in ISO 3166-1.
You can either access the codes via the "conversion
routines" (described below), or with the two functions
which return lists of all country codes or all country
names.
There are three different code sets you can use for
identifying countries:
alpha-2
Two letter codes, such as 'tv' for Tuvalu. This code
set is identified with the symbol
"LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2".
alpha-3
Three letter codes, such as 'brb' for Barbados. This
code set is identified with the symbol
"LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3".
numeric
Numeric codes, such as 064 for Bhutan. This code set
is identified with the symbol "LOCALE_CODE_NUMERIC".
All of the routines take an optional additional argument
which specifies the code set to use. If not specified, it
defaults to the two-letter codes. This is partly for
backwards compatibility (previous versions of this module
only supported the alpha-2 codes), and partly because they
are the most widely used codes.
The alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes are not case-dependent, so
you can use 'BO', 'Bo', 'bO' or 'bo' for Bolivia. When a
code is returned by one of the functions in this module,
it will always be lower-case.
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As of version 2.00, Locale::Country supports variant names
for countries. So, for example, the country code for
"United States" is "us", so country2code('United States')
returns 'us'. Now the following will also return 'us':
country2code('United States of America')
country2code('USA')
CONVERSION ROUTINES
There are three conversion routines: "code2country()",
"country2code()", and "country_code2code()".
code2country( CODE, [ CODESET ] )
This function takes a country code and returns a
string which contains the name of the country
identified. If the code is not a valid country code,
as defined by ISO 3166, then "undef" will be returned:
$country = code2country('fi');
country2code( STRING, [ CODESET ] )
This function takes a country name and returns the
corresponding country code, if such exists. If the
argument could not be identified as a country name,
then "undef" will be returned:
$code = country2code('Norway', LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3);
# $code will now be 'nor'
The case of the country name is not important. See
the section "KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS" below.
country_code2code( CODE, CODESET, CODESET )
This function takes a country code from one code set,
and returns the corresponding code from another code
set.
$alpha2 = country_code2code('fin',
LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3, LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
# $alpha2 will now be 'fi'
If the code passed is not a valid country code in the
first code set, or if there isn't a code for the
corresponding country in the second code set, then
"undef" will be returned.
QUERY ROUTINES
There are two function which can be used to obtain a list
of all codes, or all country names:
"all_country_codes( [ CODESET ] )"
Returns a list of all two-letter country codes. The
codes are guaranteed to be all lower-case, and not in
any particular order.
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"all_country_names( [ CODESET ] )"
Returns a list of all country names for which there is
a corresponding country code in the specified code
set. The names are capitalised, and not returned in
any particular order.
Not all countries have alpha-3 and numeric codes -
some just have an alpha-2 code, so you'll get a
different number of countries depending on which code
set you specify.
SEMI-PRIVATE ROUTINES
Locale::Country provides two semi-private routines for
modifying the internal data. Given their status, they
aren't exported by default, and so need to be called by
prefixing the function name with the package name.
alias_code
Define a new code as an alias for an existing code:
Locale::Country::alias_code( ALIAS => CODE [, CODESET ] )
This feature was added as a mechanism for handling a "uk"
code. The ISO standard says that the two-letter code for
"United Kingdom" is "gb", whereas domain names are all
.uk.
By default the module does not understand "uk", since it
is implementing an ISO standard. If you would like 'uk' to
work as the two-letter code for United Kingdom, use the
following:
Locale::Country::alias_code('uk' => 'gb');
With this code, both "uk" and "gb" are valid codes for
United Kingdom, with the reverse lookup returning "uk"
rather than the usual "gb".
Note: this function was previously called _alias_code, but
the leading underscore has been dropped. The old name
will be supported for all 2.X releases for backwards
compatibility.
rename_country
If the official country name just isn't good enough for
you, you can rename a country. For example, the official
country name for code 'gb' is 'United Kingdom'. If you
want to change that, you might call:
Locale::Country::rename_country('gb' => 'Great Britain');
This means that calling code2country('gb') will now return
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Locale::Country(3Perl Programmers Reference GuLocale::Country(3p)
'Great Britain' instead of 'United Kingdom'. The original
country name is retained as an alias, so for the above
example, country2code('United Kingdom') will still return
'gb'.
EXAMPLES
The following example illustrates use of the
"code2country()" function. The user is prompted for a
country code, and then told the corresponding country
name:
$| = 1; # turn off buffering
print "Enter country code: ";
chop($code = <STDIN>);
$country = code2country($code, LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
if (defined $country)
{
print "$code = $country\n";
}
else
{
print "'$code' is not a valid country code!\n";
}
DOMAIN NAMES
Most top-level domain names are based on these codes, but
there are certain codes which aren't. If you are using
this module to identify country from hostname, your best
bet is to preprocess the country code.
For example, edu, com, gov and friends would map to us; uk
would map to gb. Any others?
KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
o When using "country2code()", the country name must
currently appear exactly as it does in the source of
the module. The module now supports a small number of
variants.
Possible extensions to this are: an interface for
getting at the list of variant names, and regular
expression matches.
o In the current implementation, all data is read in
when the module is loaded, and then held in memory. A
lazy implementation would be more memory friendly.
o Support for country names in different languages.
SEE ALSO
Locale::Language
ISO two letter codes for identification of language
(ISO 639).
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Locale::Script
ISO codes for identification of scripts (ISO 15924).
Locale::Currency
ISO three letter codes for identification of
currencies and funds (ISO 4217).
Locale::SubCountry
ISO codes for country sub-divisions (states, counties,
provinces, etc), as defined in ISO 3166-2. This
module is not part of the Locale-Codes distribution,
but is available from CPAN in
CPAN/modules/by-module/Locale/
ISO 3166-1
The ISO standard which defines these codes.
http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html
Official home page for the ISO 3166 maintenance
agency.
http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso3166/iso3166-1-en.html
Another useful, but not official, home page.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/app-d-1.html
An appendix in the CIA world fact book which lists
country codes as defined by ISO 3166, FIPS 10-4, and
internet domain names.
AUTHOR
Neil Bowers <neilATbowers.com>
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2002-2004, Neil Bowers.
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.
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