[14489] | 1 |
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| 2 | =head1 NAME
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| 3 |
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| 4 | Locale::Country - ISO codes for country identification (ISO 3166)
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| 5 |
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| 6 | =head1 SYNOPSIS
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| 7 |
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| 8 | use Locale::Country;
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| 9 |
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| 10 | $country = code2country('jp'); # $country gets 'Japan'
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| 11 | $code = country2code('Norway'); # $code gets 'no'
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| 12 |
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| 13 | @codes = all_country_codes();
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| 14 | @names = all_country_names();
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| 15 |
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| 16 | # semi-private routines
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| 17 | Locale::Country::alias_code('uk' => 'gb');
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| 18 | Locale::Country::rename_country('gb' => 'Great Britain');
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| 19 |
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| 20 |
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| 21 | =head1 DESCRIPTION
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| 22 |
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| 23 | The C<Locale::Country> module provides access to the ISO
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| 24 | codes for identifying countries, as defined in ISO 3166-1.
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| 25 | You can either access the codes via the L<conversion routines>
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| 26 | (described below), or with the two functions which return lists
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| 27 | of all country codes or all country names.
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| 28 |
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| 29 | There are three different code sets you can use for identifying
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| 30 | countries:
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| 31 |
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| 32 | =over 4
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| 33 |
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| 34 | =item B<alpha-2>
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| 35 |
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| 36 | Two letter codes, such as 'tv' for Tuvalu.
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| 37 | This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2>.
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| 38 |
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| 39 | =item B<alpha-3>
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| 40 |
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| 41 | Three letter codes, such as 'brb' for Barbados.
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| 42 | This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3>.
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| 43 |
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| 44 | =item B<numeric>
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| 45 |
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| 46 | Numeric codes, such as 064 for Bhutan.
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| 47 | This code set is identified with the symbol C<LOCALE_CODE_NUMERIC>.
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| 48 |
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| 49 | =back
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| 50 |
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| 51 | All of the routines take an optional additional argument
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| 52 | which specifies the code set to use.
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| 53 | If not specified, it defaults to the two-letter codes.
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| 54 | This is partly for backwards compatibility (previous versions
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| 55 | of this module only supported the alpha-2 codes), and
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| 56 | partly because they are the most widely used codes.
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| 57 |
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| 58 | The alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes are not case-dependent,
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| 59 | so you can use 'BO', 'Bo', 'bO' or 'bo' for Bolivia.
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| 60 | When a code is returned by one of the functions in
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| 61 | this module, it will always be lower-case.
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| 62 |
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| 63 | As of version 2.00, Locale::Country supports variant
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| 64 | names for countries. So, for example, the country code for "United States"
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| 65 | is "us", so country2code('United States') returns 'us'.
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| 66 | Now the following will also return 'us':
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| 67 |
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| 68 | country2code('United States of America')
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| 69 | country2code('USA')
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| 70 |
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| 71 |
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| 72 | =head1 CONVERSION ROUTINES
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| 73 |
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| 74 | There are three conversion routines: C<code2country()>, C<country2code()>,
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| 75 | and C<country_code2code()>.
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| 76 |
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| 77 | =over 4
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| 78 |
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| 79 | =item code2country( CODE, [ CODESET ] )
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| 80 |
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| 81 | This function takes a country code and returns a string
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| 82 | which contains the name of the country identified.
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| 83 | If the code is not a valid country code, as defined by ISO 3166,
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| 84 | then C<undef> will be returned:
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| 85 |
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| 86 | $country = code2country('fi');
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| 87 |
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| 88 | =item country2code( STRING, [ CODESET ] )
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| 89 |
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| 90 | This function takes a country name and returns the corresponding
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| 91 | country code, if such exists.
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| 92 | If the argument could not be identified as a country name,
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| 93 | then C<undef> will be returned:
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| 94 |
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| 95 | $code = country2code('Norway', LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3);
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| 96 | # $code will now be 'nor'
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| 97 |
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| 98 | The case of the country name is not important.
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| 99 | See the section L<KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS> below.
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| 100 |
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| 101 | =item country_code2code( CODE, CODESET, CODESET )
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| 102 |
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| 103 | This function takes a country code from one code set,
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| 104 | and returns the corresponding code from another code set.
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| 105 |
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| 106 | $alpha2 = country_code2code('fin',
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| 107 | LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3, LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
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| 108 | # $alpha2 will now be 'fi'
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| 109 |
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| 110 | If the code passed is not a valid country code in
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| 111 | the first code set, or if there isn't a code for the
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| 112 | corresponding country in the second code set,
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| 113 | then C<undef> will be returned.
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| 114 |
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| 115 | =back
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| 116 |
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| 117 |
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| 118 | =head1 QUERY ROUTINES
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| 119 |
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| 120 | There are two function which can be used to obtain a list of all codes,
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| 121 | or all country names:
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| 122 |
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| 123 | =over 4
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| 124 |
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| 125 | =item C<all_country_codes( [ CODESET ] )>
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| 126 |
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| 127 | Returns a list of all two-letter country codes.
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| 128 | The codes are guaranteed to be all lower-case,
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| 129 | and not in any particular order.
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| 130 |
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| 131 | =item C<all_country_names( [ CODESET ] )>
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| 132 |
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| 133 | Returns a list of all country names for which there is a corresponding
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| 134 | country code in the specified code set.
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| 135 | The names are capitalised, and not returned in any particular order.
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| 136 |
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| 137 | Not all countries have alpha-3 and numeric codes -
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| 138 | some just have an alpha-2 code,
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| 139 | so you'll get a different number of countries
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| 140 | depending on which code set you specify.
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| 141 |
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| 142 | =back
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| 143 |
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| 144 |
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| 145 | =head1 SEMI-PRIVATE ROUTINES
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| 146 |
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| 147 | Locale::Country provides two semi-private routines for modifying
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| 148 | the internal data.
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| 149 | Given their status, they aren't exported by default,
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| 150 | and so need to be called by prefixing the function name with the
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| 151 | package name.
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| 152 |
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| 153 | =head2 alias_code
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| 154 |
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| 155 | Define a new code as an alias for an existing code:
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| 156 |
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| 157 | Locale::Country::alias_code( ALIAS => CODE [, CODESET ] )
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| 158 |
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| 159 | This feature was added as a mechanism for handling
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| 160 | a "uk" code. The ISO standard says that the two-letter code for
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| 161 | "United Kingdom" is "gb", whereas domain names are all .uk.
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| 162 |
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| 163 | By default the module does not understand "uk", since it is implementing
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| 164 | an ISO standard. If you would like 'uk' to work as the two-letter
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| 165 | code for United Kingdom, use the following:
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| 166 |
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| 167 | Locale::Country::alias_code('uk' => 'gb');
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| 168 |
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| 169 | With this code, both "uk" and "gb" are valid codes for United Kingdom,
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| 170 | with the reverse lookup returning "uk" rather than the usual "gb".
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| 171 |
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| 172 | B<Note:> this function was previously called _alias_code,
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| 173 | but the leading underscore has been dropped.
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| 174 | The old name will be supported for all 2.X releases for
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| 175 | backwards compatibility.
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| 176 |
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| 177 | =head2 rename_country
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| 178 |
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| 179 | If the official country name just isn't good enough for you,
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| 180 | you can rename a country. For example, the official country
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| 181 | name for code 'gb' is 'United Kingdom'.
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| 182 | If you want to change that, you might call:
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| 183 |
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| 184 | Locale::Country::rename_country('gb' => 'Great Britain');
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| 185 |
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| 186 | This means that calling code2country('gb') will now return
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| 187 | 'Great Britain' instead of 'United Kingdom'.
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| 188 | The original country name is retained as an alias,
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| 189 | so for the above example, country2code('United Kingdom')
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| 190 | will still return 'gb'.
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| 191 |
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| 192 |
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| 193 | =head1 EXAMPLES
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| 194 |
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| 195 | The following example illustrates use of the C<code2country()> function.
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| 196 | The user is prompted for a country code, and then told the corresponding
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| 197 | country name:
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| 198 |
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| 199 | $| = 1; # turn off buffering
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| 200 |
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| 201 | print "Enter country code: ";
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| 202 | chop($code = <STDIN>);
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| 203 | $country = code2country($code, LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2);
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| 204 | if (defined $country)
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| 205 | {
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| 206 | print "$code = $country\n";
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| 207 | }
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| 208 | else
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| 209 | {
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| 210 | print "'$code' is not a valid country code!\n";
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| 211 | }
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| 212 |
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| 213 | =head1 DOMAIN NAMES
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| 214 |
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| 215 | Most top-level domain names are based on these codes,
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| 216 | but there are certain codes which aren't.
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| 217 | If you are using this module to identify country from hostname,
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| 218 | your best bet is to preprocess the country code.
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| 219 |
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| 220 | For example, B<edu>, B<com>, B<gov> and friends would map to B<us>;
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| 221 | B<uk> would map to B<gb>. Any others?
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| 222 |
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| 223 | =head1 KNOWN BUGS AND LIMITATIONS
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| 224 |
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| 225 | =over 4
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| 226 |
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| 227 | =item *
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| 228 |
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| 229 | When using C<country2code()>, the country name must currently appear
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| 230 | exactly as it does in the source of the module. The module now supports
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| 231 | a small number of variants.
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| 232 |
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| 233 | Possible extensions to this are: an interface for getting at the
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| 234 | list of variant names, and regular expression matches.
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| 235 |
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| 236 | =item *
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| 237 |
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| 238 | In the current implementation, all data is read in when the
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| 239 | module is loaded, and then held in memory.
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| 240 | A lazy implementation would be more memory friendly.
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| 241 |
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| 242 | =item *
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| 243 |
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| 244 | Support for country names in different languages.
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| 245 |
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| 246 | =back
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| 247 |
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| 248 | =head1 SEE ALSO
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| 249 |
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| 250 | =over 4
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| 251 |
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| 252 | =item Locale::Language
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| 253 |
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| 254 | ISO two letter codes for identification of language (ISO 639).
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| 255 |
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| 256 | =item Locale::Script
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| 257 |
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| 258 | ISO codes for identification of scripts (ISO 15924).
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| 259 |
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| 260 | =item Locale::Currency
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| 261 |
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| 262 | ISO three letter codes for identification of currencies
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| 263 | and funds (ISO 4217).
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| 264 |
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| 265 | =item Locale::SubCountry
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| 266 |
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| 267 | ISO codes for country sub-divisions (states, counties, provinces, etc),
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| 268 | as defined in ISO 3166-2.
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| 269 | This module is not part of the Locale-Codes distribution,
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| 270 | but is available from CPAN in CPAN/modules/by-module/Locale/
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| 271 |
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| 272 | =item ISO 3166-1
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| 273 |
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| 274 | The ISO standard which defines these codes.
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| 275 |
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| 276 | =item http://www.iso.org/iso/en/prods-services/iso3166ma/index.html
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| 277 |
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| 278 | Official home page for the ISO 3166 maintenance agency.
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| 279 |
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| 280 | =item http://www.egt.ie/standards/iso3166/iso3166-1-en.html
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| 281 |
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| 282 | Another useful, but not official, home page.
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| 283 |
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| 284 | =item http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/docs/app-d-1.html
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| 285 |
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| 286 | An appendix in the CIA world fact book which lists country codes
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| 287 | as defined by ISO 3166, FIPS 10-4, and internet domain names.
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| 288 |
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| 289 | =back
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| 290 |
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| 291 |
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| 292 | =head1 AUTHOR
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| 293 |
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| 294 | Neil Bowers E<lt>[email protected]<gt>
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| 295 |
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| 296 | =head1 COPYRIGHT
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| 297 |
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| 298 | Copyright (C) 2002-2004, Neil Bowers.
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| 299 |
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| 300 | Copyright (c) 1997-2001 Canon Research Centre Europe (CRE).
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| 301 |
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| 302 | This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
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| 303 | modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.
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| 304 |
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| 305 | =cut
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| 306 |
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