Dave Rolsky > DateTime-Locale-0.45 > DateTime::Locale



Annotate this POD (1)



New  3
Open  4
View/Report Bugs
Module Version: 0.45   Source  


DateTime::Locale - Localization support for DateTime.pm


  use DateTime::Locale;

  my $loc = DateTime::Locale->load('en_GB');

  print $loc->native_locale_name(),   "\n",
        $loc->datetime_format_long(), "\n";

  # but mostly just things like ...

  my $dt = DateTime->now( locale => 'fr' );
  print "Aujourd'hui le mois est " . $dt->month_name(), "\n";


DateTime::Locale is primarily a factory for the various locale subclasses. It also provides some functions for getting information on all the available locales.

If you want to know what methods are available for locale objects, then please read the DateTime::Locale::Base documentation.


This module provides the following class methods:

DateTime::Locale->load( $locale_id | $locale_name | $alias )

Returns the locale object for the specified locale id, name, or alias - see the DateTime::Locale::Catalog documentation for a list of built in names and ids. The name provided may be either the English or native name.

If the requested locale is not found, a fallback search takes place to find a suitable replacement.

The fallback search order is:


Eg. For locale es_XX_UNKNOWN the fallback search would be:

  es_XX_UNKNOWN   # Fails - no such locale
  es_XX           # Fails - no such locale
  es              # Found - the es locale is returned as the
                  # closest match to the requested id

Eg. For locale es_Latn_XX the fallback search would be:

  es_Latn_XX      # Fails - no such locale
  es_Latn         # Fails - no such locale
  es_XX           # Fails - no such locale
  es              # Found - the es locale is returned as the
                  # closest match to the requested id

If no suitable replacement is found, then an exception is thrown.

Please note that if you provide an id to this method, then the returned locale object's id() method will always return the value you gave, even if that value was an alias to some other id.

This is done for forwards compatibility, in case something that is currently an alias becomes a unique locale in the future.

This means that the value of $locale->id() and the object's class may not match.

The loaded locale is cached, so that locale objects may be singletons. Calling DateTime::Locale->register(), DateTime::Locale->add_aliases(), or DateTime::Locale->remove_alias() clears the cache.


  my @ids = DateTime::Locale->ids();
  my $ids = DateTime::Locale->ids();

Returns an unsorted list of the available locale ids, or an array reference if called in a scalar context. This list does not include aliases.


  my @names = DateTime::Locale->names();
  my $names = DateTime::Locale->names();

Returns an unsorted list of the available locale names in English, or an array reference if called in a scalar context.


  my @names = DateTime::Locale->native_names();
  my $names = DateTime::Locale->native_names();

Returns an unsorted list of the available locale names in their native language, or an array reference if called in a scalar context. All native names are utf8 encoded.

NB: Some locales are only partially translated, so their native locale names may still contain some English.

DateTime::Locale->add_aliases ( $alias1 => $id1, $alias2 => $id2, ... )

Adds an alias to an existing locale id. This allows a locale to be loaded by its alias rather than id or name. Multiple aliases are allowed.

If the passed locale id is neither registered nor listed in DateTime::Local::Catalog's list of ids, an exception is thrown.

 DateTime::Locale->add_aliases( LastResort => 'es_ES' );

 # Equivalent to DateTime::Locale->load('es_ES');

You can also pass a hash reference to this method.

 DateTime::Locale->add_aliases( { Default     => 'en_GB',
                                  Alternative => 'en_US',
                                  LastResort  => 'es_ES' } );

DateTime::Locale->remove_alias( $alias )

Removes a locale id alias, and returns true if the specified alias actually existed.




 # Throws an exception, 'LastResort' no longer exists

DateTime::Locale->register( { ... }, { ... } )

This method allows you to register custom locales with the module. A single locale is specified as a hash, and you may register multiple locales at once by passing an array of hash references.

Until registered, custom locales cannot be instantiated via load() and will not be returned by querying methods such as ids() or names().

 register( id           => $locale_id,
           en_language  => ..., # something like 'English' or 'Afar',

           # All other keys are optional. These are:
           en_script    => ...,
           en_territory => ...,
           en_variant   => ...,

           native_language  => ...,
           native_sript     => ...,
           native_territory => ...,
           native_variant   => ...,

           # Optional - defaults to DateTime::Locale::$locale_id
           class   => $class_name,

           replace => $boolean

The locale id and English name are required, and the following formats should used wherever possible:

 id:   languageId[_script][_territoryId[_variantId]]

 Where:  languageId = Lower case ISO 639 code -
         Always choose 639-1 over 639-2 where possible.

 script = Title Case ISO 15924 script code

 territoryId = Upper case ISO 3166 code -
               Always choose 3166-1 over 3166-2 where possible.

 variantId = Upper case variant id -
             Basically anything you want, since this is typically the
             component that uniquely identifies a custom locale.

You cannot not use '@' or '=' in locale ids - these are reserved for future use. The underscore (_) is the component separator, and should not be used for any other purpose.

If the "native_*" components are supplied, they must be utf8 encoded.

If omitted, the native name is assumed to be identical to the English name.

If class is supplied, it must be the full module name of your custom locale. If omitted, the locale module is assumed to be a DateTime::Locale subclass.


     ( id           => 'en_GB_RIDAS',
       en_language  => 'English',
       en_territory => 'United Kingdom',
       en_variant   => 'Ridas Custom Locale',

 # Returns instance of class DateTime::Locale::en_GB_RIDAS
 my $l = DateTime::Locale->load('en_GB_RIDAS');

     ( id               => 'hu_HU',
       en_language      => 'Hungarian',
       en_territory     => Hungary',
       native_language  => 'Magyar',
       native_territory => 'Magyarország',

 # Returns instance of class DateTime::Locale::hu_HU
 my $l = DateTime::Locale->load('hu_HU');

     ( id    => 'en_GB_RIDAS',
       name  => 'English United Kingdom Ridas custom locale',
       class => 'Ridas::Locales::CustomGB',

 # Returns instance of class Ridas::Locales::CustomGB

If you register a locale for an id that is already registered, the "replace" parameter must be true or an exception will be thrown.

The complete name for a registered locale is generated by joining together the language, territory, and variant components with a single space.

This means that in the first example, the complete English and native names for the locale would be "English United Kingdom Ridas Custom Locale", and in the second example the complete English name is "Hungarian Hungary", while the complete native name is "Magyar Magyarország". The locale will be loadable by these complete names (English and native), via the load() method.


These are added in one of two ways:

  1. Subclass an existing locale implementing only the changes you require.
  2. Create a completely new locale as a new class.

In either case the locale MUST be registered before use.

Subclassing an existing locale

The following example sublasses the United Kingdom English locale to change some the full date and time formats.

  package Ridas::Locale::en_GB_RIDAS1;

  use strict;
  use DateTime::Locale::en_GB;

  use base 'DateTime::Locale::en_GB';

  sub date_format_full   { 'EEEE d MMMM y' }

  sub time_format_full   { 'HH mm zzzz' }


Now register it:

     ( id    => 'en_GB_RIDAS1',

       # name, territory, and variant as described in register() documentation

       class => 'Ridas::Locale::en_GB_RIDAS1',

Creating a completely new locale

You are, of course, free to subclass DateTime::Locale::Base if you want to, though this is not required.

Remember to register your custom locale!

Of course, you can always do the registration in the module itself, and simply load it before using it.

A completely new custom locale, one which does not subclass DateTime::Locale::Base, must implement a number of methods.

The following methods can be used to get information about the locale's id and name.

The following methods all return an array reference containing the specified data.

The methods with "format" in the name should return strings that can be used a part of a string, like "the month of July". The stand alone values are for use in things like calendars, and the narrow form may not be unique (for example, in day column heading for a calendar it's okay to have "T" for both Tuesday and Thursday).

The wide name should always be the full name of thing in question. The narrow name should be just one or two characters.

The following methods return strings appropriate for the DateTime->format_cldr() method:

A locale may also offer one or more formats for displaying part of a datetime, such as the year and month, or hour and minute.

The following methods deal with the default format lengths:

There are also some miscellaneous methods locales should support:


Please be aware that all locale data has been generated from the CLDR (Common Locale Data Repository) project locales data). The data is incomplete, and will contain errors in some locales.

When reporting errors in data, please check the primary data sources first, then where necessary report errors directly to the primary source via the CLDR bug report system. See http://unicode.org/cldr/filing_bug_reports.html for details.

Once these errors have been confirmed, please forward the error report and corrections to the DateTime mailing list, datetime@perl.org.








Richard Evans <rich@ridas.com>

Dave Rolsky <autarch@urth.org>

These modules are loosely based on the DateTime::Language modules, which were in turn based on the Date::Language modules from Graham Barr's TimeDate distribution.


Copyright (c) 2003 Richard Evans. Copyright (c) 2004-2009 David Rolsky. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.



The locale modules in directory DateTime/Locale/ have been generated from data provided by the CLDR project, see DateTime/Locale/LICENSE.cldr for details on the CLDR data's license.



datetime@perl.org mailing list


syntax highlighting: