Comparison ICU/java.text

[Guilhem Lavaux]

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Hi !

To the request of Tom Tromey I have made a small comparison between ICU
text and java.text. As it is MIT licenced and has a strong
implementation it would have been great to be able to import classes
though I don't really like to have some pure IBM code around. So here is
a list of the features and differences:

* classes which has the same name: BreakIterator,
CollationElementIterator, RuleBasedCollator, Collator,
CollationKey, DateFormat, DateFormatSymbols,
DecimalFormat, DecimalFormatSymbols, NumberFormat,
SimpleDateFormat, StringCharacterIterator.

* classes unavailable in ICU: Annotation,
AttributedCharacterIterator, AttributedString, Bidi,
ChoiceFormat, FieldPosition, MessageFormat,
MessageFormat.Field, NumberFormat.Field,
ParsePosition, ParseException.

Concerning shared classes:

* BreakIterator: all methods implemented.
* CollationElementIterator: all methods implemented.
* RuleBasedCollator: rules slightly different (possibility of putting
'&' in front of rules). Besides that all methods implemented.
* Collator: FULL_DECOMPOSITION is missing. All methods implemented.
* CollationKey: constructors are public unlike JDK's. All methods
implemented.
* DateFormat: no Field subclass. All methods implemented.
* DateFormatSymbols: All methods implemented.
* DecimalFormat: formatToCharacterIterator, getCurrency are missing.
* DecimalFormatSymbols: get/setCurrency are missing.
* NumberFormat: Field is missing.
* SimpleDateFormat: format prototype is different (Date for JDK,
Calendar for ICU). formatToCharacterIterator is missing. parse is different.
* StringCharacterIterator is deprecated in ICU.

Other interesting features of ICU:
* More calendars: Gregorian, Hebrew, Islamic, Japanese, BuddhistCalendar.
* Calendar: all methods implemented.

Cheers,
Guilhem.
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