icuSources/samples/datefmt/README.TXT

   1 Copyright (C) 2016 and later: Unicode, Inc. and others.
   2 License & terms of use: http://www.unicode.org/copyright.html#License
   3
   4 Copyright (c) 2002-2010, International Business Machines Corporation and others. All Rights Reserved.
   5
   6 IMPORTANT:
   7
   8 This sample was originally intended as an exercise for the ICU Workshop (September 2000).
   9 The 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
  27 INSTRUCTIONS
  28 ------------
  29
  30 This exercise was first developed and tested on ICU release 1.6.0, Win32,
  31 Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0.  It should work on other ICU releases and
  32 other 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
  43 PROBLEMS
  44 --------
  45
  46 Problem 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
  51 Problem 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
  63 Problem 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
  87 NOTES
  88 -----
  89
  90 To see a list of system TimeZone IDs, use the TimeZone::create-
  91 AvailableIDs() methods.  Alternatively, look at the file
  92 icu/docs/tz.htm.  This has a hyperlinked list of current system zones.
  93
  94
  95 ANSWERS
  96 -------
  97
  98 The exercise includes answers.  These are in the "answers" directory,
  99 and are numbered 1, 2, etc.
 100
 101 If you get stuck and you want to move to the next step, copy the
 102 answers file into the main directory in order to proceed.  E.g.,
 103 "main_1.cpp" contains the original "main.cpp" file.  "main_2.cpp"
 104 contains the "main.cpp" file after problem 1.  Etc.
 105
 106
 107 Have fun!