full-icu

What is full-icu?

The full-icu npm package provides full ICU (International Components for Unicode) data for Node.js, enabling comprehensive internationalization support. This includes features like date and time formatting, number formatting, and collation, which are essential for applications that need to support multiple languages and locales.

What are full-icu's main functionalities?

Date and Time Formatting

This feature allows you to format dates and times according to different locales. In this example, the date is formatted in French (France) locale.

const { DateTimeFormat } = require('intl');
const dtf = new DateTimeFormat('fr-FR', { year: 'numeric', month: 'long', day: 'numeric' });
console.log(dtf.format(new Date()));

Number Formatting

This feature enables number formatting according to different locales. The example shows how to format a number as a currency in German (Germany) locale.

const { NumberFormat } = require('intl');
const nf = new NumberFormat('de-DE', { style: 'currency', currency: 'EUR' });
console.log(nf.format(123456.789));

Collation

Collation allows for locale-aware string comparison and sorting. The example demonstrates sorting an array of strings in Spanish (Spain) locale.

const { Collator } = require('intl');
const collator = new Collator('es-ES');
const sorted = ['z', 'a', 'ä'].sort(collator.compare);
console.log(sorted);

Other packages similar to full-icu

globalize

Globalize is a comprehensive internationalization library that provides similar functionalities to full-icu, such as date and time formatting, number formatting, and message formatting. It is built on top of the Unicode CLDR data and provides a rich set of features for handling various internationalization needs.

i18next

i18next is a popular internationalization framework for JavaScript that focuses on providing a complete solution for translating applications. While it does not provide low-level ICU functionalities like full-icu, it excels in managing translations and localization workflows, making it a good complement to full-icu for applications that need both translation management and ICU features.

moment

Moment.js is a widely-used library for parsing, validating, manipulating, and formatting dates. While it does not provide the full range of ICU functionalities, it offers extensive support for date and time operations, including localization features. It is often used in conjunction with other libraries to provide comprehensive internationalization support.

README

full-icu

Install full ICU (Internationalization) data from GitHub or npm for Node.js.

What is this and why would I use it?

Importing this package does not have any useful effect, see below.

Originally, Node.js did not come with information for all of the world’s languages. The default build mode was “small-icu” which means English-only, saving about 50% of the total Node.js download footprint.

Since Node.js 13, full ICU data has been the default for Node.js. So this module is only helpful for older Node.js versions, or custom builds which specify small-icu.

This module does not add any internationalization capabilities to Node.js, but it can provide a convenient way of loading the data.

Please see “providing ICU data at runtime” in the Node.js docs for more information.

Am I using small-icu?

Let's find out:

$ node -p 'process.config.variables.icu_small'
true

If you see false here, you aren't using small ICU and this package won’t do anything useful for you, although it is harmless.

To use

First, you must have a Node.js that is configured for small-icu. See above.

npm install full-icu

Note: Set env var FULL_ICU_PREFER_NPM=true to prefer using the icu4c-data npm module, otherwise the default is now to load from ICU4C’s GitHub release.

To install globally

npm install -g full-icu

After Installation

Instructions will be printed out on how to activate this data for your version of node.

This work gets done in a postinstall script which copies the icudt*.dat file up to this module's level.

API

Note that this is only packaging and build metadata. For Internationalization API, see Intl.

require('full-icu') returns a few properties:

• nodever - the full Node version (ex: 14.2.0)

• node_maj - the major part of the node version (ex: 14)

• node_min - the minor part of the node version (ex 2)

• icu_small - if truthy, means that node was built with small-icu (English only). If falsy, means that the full-icu package is not relevant.

• icuver - the full ICU version, if available, such as 55.1. Sometimes only the major version is available.

• icumaj - ICU major ver, such as 55. May be === icuver.

• icumin - ICU minor version, such as 1 if available.

• icuend - ICU endianness - little, big or ebcdic.

• icupkg - the npm package needed to get full ICU data, if any.

• icudat - the raw data file ICU expects to find for full data, if any.

• noi18n - if truthy, no ICU / Intl build was enabled for your node version. Sorry.

• oldNode - The node version is older than this package can really think about.

BIN

node-full-icu-path will print the full icudt*.dat path, if available.

CONTRIBUTING

Please see our CONTRIBUTING guide if you'd like to help with this initiative!

LICENSE

This repository is subject to the terms under the Node.js license. Some usage of this data is governed by the Unicode Terms of Use, which is included in the unicode-license.txt

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 1991-2021 Unicode, Inc. and Node.js contributors. All rights reserved.

Unicode terms of use