charnames(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide charnames(3p)
charnames - define character names for "\N{named}" string
literal escapes
use charnames ':full';
print "\N{GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA} is called sigma.\n";
use charnames ':short';
print "\N{greek:Sigma} is an upper-case sigma.\n";
use charnames qw(cyrillic greek);
print "\N{sigma} is Greek sigma, and \N{be} is Cyrillic b.\n";
use charnames ":full", ":alias" => {
e_ACUTE => "LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE",
};
print "\N{e_ACUTE} is a small letter e with an acute.\n";
use charnames ();
print charnames::viacode(0x1234); # prints "ETHIOPIC SYLLABLE SEE"
printf "%04X", charnames::vianame("GOTHIC LETTER AHSA"); # prints "10330"
Pragma "use charnames" supports arguments ":full", ":short",
script names and customized aliases. If ":full" is present,
for expansion of "\N{CHARNAME}", the string "CHARNAME" is
first looked up in the list of standard Unicode character
names. If ":short" is present, and "CHARNAME" has the form
"SCRIPT:CNAME", then "CNAME" is looked up as a letter in
script "SCRIPT". If pragma "use charnames" is used with
script name arguments, then for "\N{CHARNAME}" the name
"CHARNAME" is looked up as a letter in the given scripts (in
the specified order). Customized aliases are explained in
"CUSTOM ALIASES".
For lookup of "CHARNAME" inside a given script "SCRIPTNAME"
this pragma looks for the names
SCRIPTNAME CAPITAL LETTER CHARNAME
SCRIPTNAME SMALL LETTER CHARNAME
SCRIPTNAME LETTER CHARNAME
in the table of standard Unicode names. If "CHARNAME" is
lowercase, then the "CAPITAL" variant is ignored, otherwise
the "SMALL" variant is ignored.
Note that "\N{...}" is compile-time, it's a special form of
string constant used inside double-quoted strings: in other
words, you cannot use variables inside the "\N{...}". If
you want similar run-time functionality, use
charnames::vianame().
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charnames(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide charnames(3p)
For the C0 and C1 control characters (U+0000..U+001F,
U+0080..U+009F) as of Unicode 3.1, there are no official
Unicode names but you can use instead the ISO 6429 names
(LINE FEED, ESCAPE, and so forth). In Unicode 3.2 (as of
Perl 5.8) some naming changes take place ISO 6429 has been
updated, see "ALIASES". Also note that the U+UU80, U+0081,
U+0084, and U+0099 do not have names even in ISO 6429.
Since the Unicode standard uses "U+HHHH", so can you:
"\N{U+263a}" is the Unicode smiley face, or "\N{WHITE SMIL-
ING FACE}".
The mechanism of translation of "\N{...}" escapes is general
and not hardwired into charnames.pm. A module can install
custom translations (inside the scope which "use"s the
module) with the following magic incantation:
use charnames (); # for $charnames::hint_bits
sub import {
shift;
$^H |= $charnames::hint_bits;
$^H{charnames} = \&translator;
}
Here translator() is a subroutine which takes "CHARNAME" as
an argument, and returns text to insert into the string
instead of the "\N{CHARNAME}" escape. Since the text to
insert should be different in "bytes" mode and out of it,
the function should check the current state of "bytes"-flag
as in:
use bytes (); # for $bytes::hint_bits
sub translator {
if ($^H & $bytes::hint_bits) {
return bytes_translator(@_);
}
else {
return utf8_translator(@_);
}
}
This version of charnames supports three mechanisms of
adding local or customized aliases to standard Unicode nam-
ing conventions (:full)
Anonymous hashes
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charnames(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide charnames(3p)
use charnames ":full", ":alias" => {
e_ACUTE => "LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE",
};
my $str = "\N{e_ACUTE}";
Alias file
use charnames ":full", ":alias" => "pro";
will try to read "unicore/pro_alias.pl" from the @INC path. This
file should return a list in plain perl:
(
A_GRAVE => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH GRAVE",
A_CIRCUM => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH CIRCUMFLEX",
A_DIAERES => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH DIAERESIS",
A_TILDE => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH TILDE",
A_BREVE => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH BREVE",
A_RING => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE",
A_MACRON => "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH MACRON",
);
Alias shortcut
use charnames ":alias" => ":pro";
works exactly the same as the alias pairs, only this time,
":full" is inserted automatically as first argument (if no
other argument is given).
charnames::viacode(code)
Returns the full name of the character indicated by the
numeric code. The example
print charnames::viacode(0x2722);
prints "FOUR TEARDROP-SPOKED ASTERISK".
Returns undef if no name is known for the code.
This works only for the standard names, and does not yet
apply to custom translators.
Notice that the name returned for of U+FEFF is "ZERO WIDTH
NO-BREAK SPACE", not "BYTE ORDER MARK".
charnames::vianame(name)
Returns the code point indicated by the name. The example
printf "%04X", charnames::vianame("FOUR TEARDROP-SPOKED ASTERISK");
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charnames(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide charnames(3p)
prints "2722".
Returns undef if the name is unknown.
This works only for the standard names, and does not yet
apply to custom translators.
A few aliases have been defined for convenience: instead of
having to use the official names
LINE FEED (LF)
FORM FEED (FF)
CARRIAGE RETURN (CR)
NEXT LINE (NEL)
(yes, with parentheses) one can use
LINE FEED
FORM FEED
CARRIAGE RETURN
NEXT LINE
LF
FF
CR
NEL
One can also use
BYTE ORDER MARK
BOM
and
ZWNJ
ZWJ
for ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER and ZERO WIDTH JOINER.
For backward compatibility one can use the old names for
certain C0 and C1 controls
old new
HORIZONTAL TABULATION CHARACTER TABULATION
VERTICAL TABULATION LINE TABULATION
FILE SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR FOUR
GROUP SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR THREE
RECORD SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR TWO
UNIT SEPARATOR INFORMATION SEPARATOR ONE
PARTIAL LINE DOWN PARTIAL LINE FORWARD
PARTIAL LINE UP PARTIAL LINE BACKWARD
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charnames(3p) Perl Programmers Reference Guide charnames(3p)
but the old names in addition to giving the character will
also give a warning about being deprecated.
If you ask by name for a character that does not exist, a
warning is given and the Unicode replacement character
"\x{FFFD}" is returned.
If you ask by code for a character that does not exist, no
warning is given and "undef" is returned. (Though if you
ask for a code point past U+10FFFF you do get a warning.)
Since evaluation of the translation function happens in a
middle of compilation (of a string literal), the translation
function should not do any "eval"s or "require"s. This res-
triction should be lifted in a future version of Perl.
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