README.TXT
1Copyright (c) 2002-2010, International Business Machines Corporation and others. All Rights Reserved.
2
3
4IMPORTANT:
5
6This sample was originally intended as an exercise for the ICU Workshop (September 2000).
7The code currently provided in the solution file is the answer to the exercises, each step can still be found in the 'answers' subdirectory.
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9
10
11
12 http://www.icu-project.org/docs/workshop_2000/agenda.html
13
14 Day 2: September 12th 2000
15 Pre-requisites:
16 1. All the hardware and software requirements from Day 1.
17 2. Attended or fully understand Day 1 material.
18 3. Read through the ICU user's guide at
19 http://www.icu-project.org/userguide/.
20
21 #Date/Time/Number Formatting Support
22 9:30am - 10:30am
23 Alan Liu
24
25 Topics:
26 1. What is the date/time support in ICU?
27 2. What is the timezone support in ICU?
28 3. What kind of formatting and parsing support is available in ICU, i.e.
29 NumberFormat, DateFormat, MessageFormat?
30
31
32INSTRUCTIONS
33------------
34
35
36This exercise was first developed and tested on ICU release 1.6.0, Win32,
37Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. It should work on other ICU releases and
38other platforms as well.
39
40 MSVC:
41 Open the file "msgfmt.sln" in Microsoft Visual C++.
42
43 Unix:
44 - Build and install ICU with a prefix, for example '--prefix=/home/srl/ICU'
45 - Set the variable ICU_PREFIX=/home/srl/ICU and use GNU make in
46 this directory.
47 - You may use 'make check' to invoke this sample.
48
49PROBLEMS
50--------
51
52Problem 0:
53
54 Set up the program, build it, and run it. To start with, the
55 program prints out the word "Message".
56
57Problem 1: Basic Message Formatting (Easy)
58
59 Use a MessageFormat to create a message that prints out "Received
60 <n> argument(s) on <d>.", where n is the number of command line
61 arguments (use argc-1), and d is the date (use Calendar::getNow()).
62
63 HINT: Your message pattern should have a "number" element and a
64 "date" element, and you will need to use Formattable.
65
66Problem 2: ChoiceFormat (Medium)
67
68 We can do better than "argument(s)". Instead, we can display more
69 idiomatic strings, such as "no arguments", "one argument", "two
70 arguments", and for higher values, we can use a number format.
71
72 This kind of value-based switching is done using a ChoiceFormat.
73 However, you seldom needs to create a ChoiceFormat by itself.
74 Instead, most of the time you will supply the ChoiceFormat pattern
75 within a MessageFormat pattern.
76
77 Use a ChoiceFormat pattern within the MessageFormat pattern, instead
78 of the "number" element, to display more idiomatic strings.
79
80 EXTRA: Embed a number element within the choice element to handle
81 values greater than two.
82
83
84ANSWERS
85-------
86
87The exercise includes answers. These are in the "answers" directory,
88and are numbered 1, 2, etc.
89
90If you get stuck and you want to move to the next step, copy the
91answers file into the main directory in order to proceed. E.g.,
92"main_1.cpp" contains the original "main.cpp" file. "main_2.cpp"
93contains the "main.cpp" file after problem 1. Etc.
94
95
96Have fun!
97