Newsgroups: php.internals
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Xref: news.php.net php.internals:114124
Date: Sat, 24 Apr 2021 17:12:12 +0200 (CEST)
To: internals <internals@lists.php.net>
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Thread-Topic: Add IntlDateTimePatternGenerator
Subject: [RFC] Add IntlDateTimePatternGenerator
From: mel@dafert.at (Mel Dafert)

Hi Internals,

I would like to propose an RFC https://wiki.php.net/rfc/intldatetimepatterngenerator to add IntlDateTimePatternGenerator
which exposes ICU's ability to flexibly create localized date/time formatting patterns from a skeleton.

Previous discussion: https://externals.io/message/113831
Implementation: https://github.com/php/php-src/pull/6771

Proposed signature:
```
class IntlDateTimePatternGenerator
{
    public function __construct(?string $locale = null) {}
 
    public static function create(?string $locale = null): ?IntlDateTimePatternGenerator {}
 
    public function getBestPattern(string $skeleton): string|false {}
}
```

There is an open question about what this should be named `IntlDatePatternGenerator` instead, both for brevity and to keep consistency
with `IntlDateFormatter`. (Note that the underlying ICU classes are called `DateTimePatternGenerator` and `DateFormatter`, respectively.)
I am open to switching to the shorter form.

Another open question is the signature, as currently both `__construct` and `create` are exposed (like `IntlDateFormatter`).
Other classes inside the intl extension (like `IntlCalendar`) only provide a static `create` method, and leave the `__construct` method
private. Is there a preferred way, or are both equivalent?

Regards,
Mel