Locale::Codes::Changes(3)

NAME
Locale::Codes::Changes - details changes to Locale::Codes

SYNOPSIS
This describes the changes made to modules in the Locale-Codes distribution. Major changes are marked with asterisks (*). For the most part, all modules have remained backward compatible at every release, but occasionally a change is made which is backward incompatible. These are marked with an exclamation mark (!).

As of 3.00, the codes are autogenerated from the standards. With each release, codes will be re-generated and tested to see if any code changed. Any time there are any changes to the codes, it will be flagged below with a change: NEW CODE(s).

I intend to check for new codes four times a year (March, June, September, December). I will also check on request, so if a code changes that you use, feel free to contact me. Any time there are new codes, I will add them to the module and release a new version.

VERSION 3.22 (yyyy-mm-dd; sbeck)

VERSION 3.21 (2012-03-01; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

VERSION 3.20 (2011-12-01; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

Added limited support for deprecated codes
    The code2XXX, XXX2code, all_XXX_codes, and all_XXX_names functions now support retired codes. RT 71124

Fixed capitalization
    The 'South Sudan' country was all caps. RT 71024

Pod tests off by default
    The pod tests will not run at install time. RT 71122

Codesets may be specified by name
    All codesets may be specified by a constant or by their name now. Previously, they were specified only by a constant.

alias_code deprecated
    The alias_code function exists for backward compatibility. It has been replaced by rename_country_code . The alias_code function will be removed sometime after September, 2013 .

Code cleanup
    All work is now done in the central module (Locale::Codes). Previously, some was still done in the wrapper modules (Locale::Codes::*) but that is gone now.

Added LangFam module
    Added Language Family codes (langfam) as defined in ISO 639-5.

VERSION 3.18 (2011-08-31; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

No longer use CIA data
    The CIA world added non-standard values, so I no longer use it as a source of data. Based on a report by Michiel Beijen.

VERSION 3.17 (2011-06-28; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

Added new types of codes
    Added Language Extension codes (langext) and Language Variation codes (langvar) as defined in the IANA language registry.

Added new codeset(s)
    Added language codes from ISO 639-5

    Added language/script codes from the IANA language subtag registry

Bug fixes
    Fixed an uninitialized value warning. RT 67438

    Fixed the return value for the all_XXX_codes and all_XXX_names functions. RT 69100

Reorganized code
    Reorganized modules to move Locale::MODULE to Locale::Codes::MODULE to allow for cleaner future additions. The original four modules (Locale::Language, Locale::Currency, Locale::Country, Locale::Script) will continue to work, but all new sets of codes will be added in the Locale::Codes namespace.

VERSION 3.16 (2011-03-01; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

VERSION 3.15 (2010-12-02; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

Minor fixes
    Added version number to Makefile.PL/Build.PL requirement for POD testing modules. RT 62247

    Changed 'use vars' to 'our'

VERSION 3.14 (2010-09-28; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

Bug fixes
    Stripped out some HTML that got included with some codes.

VERSION 3.13 (2010-06-04; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

VERSION 3.12 (2010-04-06; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

Reorganized code
    Renamed test.pl to testfunc.pl to avoid causing an error when built as part of perl.

VERSION 3.11 (2010-03-01; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

Added new codeset(s)
    Added the IANA domain names to Country

Bug fixes
    Fixed a problem that produced warnings with perl 5.11.5. Jerry D. Hedden

VERSION 3.10 (2010-02-18; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

Reorganized code
    Moved support files into the Locale::Codes namespace.

    The work done in each of the Locale::XXX modules was virtually identical to each other. It has all been moved to a central module and the Locale::XXX modules are now just wrappers.

(!) 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

New aliases
    Added "UK" alias. Steve Hay

VERSION 3.01 (2010-02-15; sbeck)

Fixed Makefile.PL and Build.PL
    They now install as core modules as they are supposed to. Reported in RT 54526

VERSION 3.00 (2010-02-10; sbeck)
NEW CODE(s)

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 new codeset(s)
    FIPS 10 country codes (requested in RT 1755)

    Alpha-3 and Term language codes (requested in RT 11730)

    Numeric currency codes (requested in RT 18797)

(*) (!) 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.

(!) All functions return the standard value
    code2country (and other equivalent functions) now returns the name of the country specified in the standard (if the different standards refer to the country by different variations in the name, the results will differ based on the CODESET)

(!) rename_country function altered
    The rename_country function from 2.07 would guess the CODESET (unlike all other functions which used a default of LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2). The guess can cause problems since (with the addition of FIPS) codes may appear in different codesets for different countries. The behavior has been changed to be the same as other functions (default to LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2).

VERSION 2.07 (2004-06-10; neilb)
Made $_ local in the initialization code for each module change back-propagated from Perl distribution

Removed two non ISO-8859-1 characters from language names change back-propagated from Perl distribution

Added the following aliases, with a test case for each
   - Burma added to Myanmar
   - French Southern and Antarctic Lands to
     French Southern Territories patch from TJ Mather

"Canadian Dollar" was misspelled as "Candian Dollar"
   - noted by Nick Cabatoff, patch from Michael Hennecke

Changes to Locale::Country reflecting changes in ISO 3166
   - added Aland Islands (ax, ala, 248)
   - YUGOSLAVIA is now SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO
      YU => CS
      YUG => SCG
      891 => 891 (unchanged)
      (YUGOSLAVIA retained as an alias)
   - EAST TIMOR changed to TIMOR-LESTE
      (old name retained as an alias)
   - three letter code for Romania changed from ROM to ROU

ZAIRE is now CONGO, THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE
    ZR => CD
    ZAR => COD
    180 => 180 (unchanged)
    (ZAIRE retained as alias)

VERSION 2.06 (2002-07-15; neilb)
The four modules which have data after __DATA__ weren't closing the DATA filehandle after reading from it, which they should. Bug and patch from Steve Hay.

VERSION 2.05 (2002-07-08; neilb)
Added three letter codes for the countries that were missing them. Patch from TJ Mather.

Documentation bug: one of the examples used => where the lvalue was a constant, which isn't allowed, unless you put the () with the constant to force the right interpretation. Pointed out by TJ Mather and MYT.

Updated the URL for the appendix in the CIA world factbook. Patch from TJ Mather.

VERSION 2.04 (2002-05-23; neilb)
Updated according to changes in ISO 3166-1 described in ISO 3166-1 newsletters V-4 and V-5, dated 2002-05-20:
   - Kazakstan is now "Kazakhstan"
   - Macau is now "Macao" The old names are retained as aliases.

The alpha-2 and alpha-3 codes for East Timor have changed:
   tp -> tl
   tmp -> tls the numeric code stays 626. If you want to support the old codes, you can use the semi-private function alias_code().

VERSION 2.03 (2002-03-24; neilb)
Fixed a typo in the alias for the Vatican, reported (with patch) by Philip Newton.

Added "Moldova" as an alias for "Moldova, Republic of"

Updated Makefile.PL to include AUTHOR and ABSTRACT

VERSION 2.02 (2002-03-09; neilb)
Added semi-private routine rename_country() to Locale::Country, based on a patch from Iain Chalmers.

Added test rename.t for the above function.

Renamed _alias_code to be alias_code. Have retained the old name for backwards compatibility. Will remove it when the major version number next changes.

VERSION 2.01 (2002-02-18; neilb)
Split the documentation for all modules into separate pod files.

Made sure all =over were =over 4; some were other values.

The code2code() methods had one more shift than was needed.

VERSION 2.00 (2002-02-17; neilb)
Created Locale::Script which provides an interface to the ISO codes for identification of scripts (writing scripts, rather than perl style scripts). The codes are defined by ISO 15924, which is currently in final draft. Thanks to Jarkko for pointing out this new standard. All three code sets are supported, and a test-suite added.

Added support for country name variants to Locale::Country, so that
   country2code('USA')
   country2code('United States')
   country2code('United States of America') will all return 'us'. This had been in the LIMITATIONS section since the first version. Patch from TJ Mather with additional variants from me. Added test-cases for these.

Added VERSION to Locale::Constants. Thanks to Jarkko for pointing that it was missing.

Should really have bumped major version with previous release, since there was a change to the API.

VERSION 1.06 (2001-03-04; neilb)
Added Locale::Constants, which defines three symbols for identifying which codeset is being used:

   LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_2
   LOCALE_CODE_ALPHA_3
   LOCALE_CODE_NUMERIC

Updated Locale::Country to support all three code sets defined by ISO 3166. This was requested by Keith Wall. I haven't added multiple codeset support to the other modules yet - I'll wait until someone asks for them.

VERSION 1.05 (2001-02-13; neilb)
Added Locale::Currency, contribution from Michael Hennecke.

Added test suite for it (t/currency.t) and added test cases to t/all.t for the all_* functions.

VERSION 1.04 (2000-12-21; neilb)
Fixed very minor typos from 1.03!

VERSION 1.03 (2000-12-??; neilb)
Updated Locale::Country:
   - fixed spelling of a few countries
   - added link to a relevant page from CIA world factbook

Updated Locale::Language:
   - fixed typo in the documentation (ISO 939 should be 639)

VERSION 1.02 (2000-05-04; neilb)
Updated Locale::Country and Locale::Language to reflect changes in the relevant ISO standards. These mainly reflect languages which are new to the relevant standard, and changes in the spelling of some country names.

Added official URLs for the standards to the SEE ALSO sections of the doc for each module.

Thanks to Jarkko Hietaniemi for pointing me at the pages with latest versions of ISO 3166 and 639.

VERSION 1.00 (1998-03-09; neilb)
Added Locale::Country::_alias_code() so that 'uk' can be added as the code for "United Kingdom", if you want it. This was prompted by Ed Jordan.

Added a new test suite for handling this case, and extended the existing test-suite to include testing of the case where 'uk' hasn't been defined as a valid code.

VERSION 0.003 (1997-05-09; neilb)
First public release to CPAN

SEE ALSO
Locale::Codes

AUTHOR
See Locale::Codes for full author history.

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

COPYRIGHT
   Copyright (c) 2001-2010 Neil Bowers
   Copyright (c) 2010-2012 Sullivan Beck

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