Intl

Note: These instructions will apply to v0.12 and following.

• An exception is the Chromium ICU instructions which are already relevant to node.
• TODO: remove the above notice when https://github.com/joyent/node/pull/7719 is in master
• TODO: as of https://github.com/joyent/node/pull/8719 the option --with-intl=none will be the default, AND ICU will be downloaded automatically if need be. Need to reword the wiki here.
• TODO: document --with-icu-locales with examples, and point to http://apps.icu-project.org/datacustom/ for a list of current locales.

What is Intl?

The Intl object is available when EcmaScript 402 support is enabled. Node.js uses ICU4C to implement the Intl object natively.

Unix/Macintosh: Using a pre-built ICU (system-icu)

The Intl package can use an ICU which is already built.

Installing a pre-built ICU

Here are some ways to obtain a pre-built ICU:

From a package manager

Run one of these or similar as appropriate for your system:

 apt-get install libicu-dev
 yum install libicu-dev

Building ICU yourself

• Download ICU source http://icu-project.org/download

• Follow the enclosed readme.html to build ICU, particularly paying attention to the --prefix argument

• build ICU and then:

  make install

Verify an installed ICU

 pkg-config --modversion icu-i18n

If this command fails, node will not be able to find the installed ICU. Verify that the PKG_CONFIG_PATH points to the newly installed icu-i18n.pc file

Configure node

 ./configure --with-intl=system-icu

• Download the latest icu4c-##.#-src.tgz (or .zip)
• Unpack the source as deps/icu (you should have deps/icu/source/...)

Building node with an embedded ICU

Download ICU source

First: Unpack latest ICU icu4c-##.#-src.tgz (or .zip) as deps/icu (You'll have: deps/icu/source/...)

Unix/Macintosh

• ./configure ... --with-intl=full-icu

Or, to build the "small" variant (English only):

• ./configure ... --with-intl=small-icu

Windows

• vsbuild.bat ... full-icu

Or, to build the "small" variant (English only):

• vsbuild.bat ... small-icu

Using the "small" build

• If you use the "small-icu" option, you can provide additional data at runtime.
  • Two methods:
    • The NODE_ICU_DATA env variable: env NODE_ICU_DATA=/some/path node
    • The --icu-data-dir parameter: node --icu-data-dir=/some/path
  • Example: If you use the path /some/path, then ICU 53 on Little Endian (l) finds:
    • individual files such as /some/path/icudt53l/root.res
    • a packaged data file /some/path/icudt53l.dat
  • Notes:
    • See u_setDataDirectory() and the ICU Users Guide for many more details.
    • "53l" will be "53b" on a big endian machine.
• Note that this option is also useful for updating ICU's time zone data.

Verifying an Intl build

• btest402.js is a very basic test of whether Intl is built correctly.

Using Intl build

• See: EcmaScript 402
• Tutorial: Working with Intl

Building using Chromium's ICU

Note: this build is missing some locales, is an older revision, and has a larger output size. It is included here for completeness.

svn checkout --force --revision 214189 \
    http://src.chromium.org/svn/trunk/deps/third_party/icu46 \
    deps/v8/third_party/icu46
./configure --with-icu-path=deps/v8/third_party/icu46/icu.gyp
make
make install

FAQ

• none (yet!)