README.TXT
1Copyright (C) 2016 and later: Unicode, Inc. and others.
2License & terms of use: http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html
3
4Copyright (c) 2002-2010, International Business Machines Corporation and others. All Rights Reserved.
5
6IMPORTANT:
7
8This sample was originally intended as an exercise for the ICU Workshop (September 2000).
9The code currently provided in the solution file is the answer to the exercises, each step can still be found in the 'answers' subdirectory.
10
11
12
13** Workshop homepage is:
14 http://www.icu-project.org/docs/workshop_2000/agenda.html
15
16 #Date/Time/Number Formatting Support
17 9:30am - 10:30am
18 Alan Liu
19
20 Topics:
21 1. What is the date/time support in ICU?
22 2. What is the timezone support in ICU?
23 3. What kind of formatting and parsing support is available in ICU, i.e.
24 NumberFormat, DateFormat, MessageFormat?
25
26
27INSTRUCTIONS
28------------
29
30This exercise was first developed and tested on ICU release 1.6.0, Win32,
31Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. It should work on other ICU releases and
32other platforms as well.
33
34 MSVC:
35 Open the file "datefmt.sln" in Microsoft Visual C++.
36
37 Unix:
38 - Build and install ICU with a prefix, for example '--prefix=/home/srl/ICU'
39 - Set the variable ICU_PREFIX=/home/srl/ICU and use GNU make in
40 this directory.
41 - You may use 'make check' to invoke this sample.
42
43PROBLEMS
44--------
45
46Problem 0:
47
48 Set up the program, build it, and run it. To start with, the
49 program prints out a list of languages.
50
51Problem 1: Basic Date Formatting (Easy)
52
53 Create a calendar, and use it to get the UDate for June 4, 1999,
54 0:00 GMT (or any date of your choosing). You will have to create a
55 TimeZone (use the createZone() function already defined in main.cpp)
56 and a Calendar object, and make the calendar use the time zone.
57
58 Once you have the UDate, create a DateFormat object in each of the
59 languages in the LANGUAGE array, and display the date in that
60 language. Use the DateFormat::createDateInstance() method to create
61 the date formatter.
62
63Problem 2: Date Formatting, Specific Time Zone (Medium)
64
65 To really localize a time display, one can also specify the time
66 zone in which the time should be displayed. For each language,
67 also create different time zones from the TIMEZONE list.
68
69 To format a date with a specific calendar and zone, you must deal with
70 three objects: a DateFormat, a Calendar, and a TimeZone. Each object
71 must be linked to another in correct sequence: The Calendar must use
72 the TimeZone, and the DateFormat must use the Calendar.
73
74 DateFormat =uses=> Calendar =uses=> TimeZone
75
76 Use either setFoo() or adoptFoo() methods, depending on where you
77 want to have ownership.
78
79 NOTE: It's not always desirable to change the time to a local time
80 zone before display. For instance, if some even occurs at 0:00 GMT
81 on the first of the month, it's probably clearer to just state that.
82 Stating that it occurs at 5:00 PM PDT on the day before in the
83 summer, and 4:00 PM PST on the day before in the winter will just
84 confuse the issue.
85
86
87NOTES
88-----
89
90To see a list of system TimeZone IDs, use the TimeZone::create-
91AvailableIDs() methods. Alternatively, look at the file
92icu/docs/tz.htm. This has a hyperlinked list of current system zones.
93
94
95ANSWERS
96-------
97
98The exercise includes answers. These are in the "answers" directory,
99and are numbered 1, 2, etc.
100
101If you get stuck and you want to move to the next step, copy the
102answers file into the main directory in order to proceed. E.g.,
103"main_1.cpp" contains the original "main.cpp" file. "main_2.cpp"
104contains the "main.cpp" file after problem 1. Etc.
105
106
107Have fun!
108