# RFC: ICU IntlChar class

- Status: Implemented (PHP 7.0)
- Authors: Sara Golemon, pollita@php.net
- Date: 2014-11-24
- Version: 1.0
- Original: https://wiki.php.net/rfc/intl.char
- Page: https://externals.io/rfc/intl.char
- More for agents: search with https://externals.io/search.md?q={query} · RFCs at https://externals.io/rfc.md · JSON API at https://externals.io/api · documentation at https://externals.io/llms.txt

## Votes

### Accept the IntlChar RFC and merge into master? (closed)

Yes: 14 · No: 0

Voters: ab (Yes), aharvey (Yes), ajf (Yes), guilhermeblanco (Yes), indeyets (Yes), irker (Yes), jedibc (Yes), kinncj (Yes), leigh (Yes), mike (Yes), pollita (Yes), rasmus (Yes), salathe (Yes), stas (Yes)

## Discussions on the mailing list

- [\[RFC\] IntlChar class and intl_char_*() functions](https://externals.io/message/79146.md) — started on 2014-11-25, 22 messages
- [Policy for procedural style in new additions](https://externals.io/message/114718.md) — started on 2021-06-03, 7 messages

---

## Introduction

ICU exposes a great deal of i18n/l10n functionality beyond what is currently exposed by PHP. This RFC seeks to expose just a little bit more...

## Proposal

Expose additional ICU functionality from [uchar.h](http://icu-project.org/apiref/icu4c/uchar_8h.html) as IntlChar::\*() following the ICU API as much as possible.

See hphp/runtime/ext/icu/ext\_icu\_uchar.php in <https://reviews.facebook.net/D30573> for a full breakdown of the functions (complete with docblocks). Constants can be found in either PR's \*-enum.h files.

## Proposed PHP Version(s)

PHP 7 (or 5.next if there is one)

### New Constants

Enumerations of UProperty, UCharNameChoice, UPropertyNameChoice, UCharDirection, UBlockCode, etc... For example:

```
class IntlChar {
  const PROPERTY_ALPHABETIC = _UCHAR_ALPHABETIC_;
  const PROPERTY_ASCII_HEX_DIGIT = _UCHAR_ASCII_HEX_DIGIT_;
  /* etc... */
}
```

### New Static Methods

Mapping of ICU API to PHP. For example:

```
class IntlChar {
  static public function hasBinaryProperty(int $codepoint, int $property): bool;
  static public function isAlphabetic(int $codepoint): bool;
  /* etc... */
}
```

Note that properties taking a codepoint will accept either an integer codepoint value (e.g. 0x2603 for U+2603 SNOWMAN), or the character encoded as UTF-8 (e.g. “\\xE2\\x98\\x83”). For methods which return a codepoint, they will return int unless they accepted a codepoint as a utf-8 string, in which case they remain utf-8.

## Notes

I also added IntlChar::chr() and IntlChar::ord() which aren't directly part of the API, but they made sense as wrappers for the U8\_\*() family of macros.

Some methods take a range in the form ($start, $limit) which the range is INclusive of $start, and EXclusive of $limit. i.e. (0x20, 0x30) =&gt; 0x20..0x2F. I kept this meaning for $limit to stay consistent with the ICU API, but changing $limit to have the semantics of $end would probably make more sense in PHP.

## Vote

**Vote: Accept the IntlChar RFC and merge into master?** — Yes: 14 · No: 0 (closed)

- Voting opened: 2014-12-26 02:20 UTC
- Voting closed: 2015-01-16 17:20 UTC (3 week voting period)

## Implementation

- PHP7: [github/sgolemon/php-src/intl.uchar](https://github.com/sgolemon/php-src/compare/intl.uchar)
- HHVM <https://reviews.facebook.net/D30573>