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
6
7IMPORTANT:
8
9This sample was originally intended as an exercise for the ICU Workshop (September 2000).
10The code currently provided in the solution file is the answer to the exercises, each step can still be found in the 'answers' subdirectory.
11
12
13
14
15 http://www.icu-project.org/docs/workshop_2000/agenda.html
16
17 Day 2: September 12th 2000
18 Pre-requisites:
19 1. All the hardware and software requirements from Day 1.
20 2. Attended or fully understand Day 1 material.
21 3. Read through the ICU user's guide at
22 http://www.icu-project.org/userguide/.
23
24 #Date/Time/Number Formatting Support
25 9:30am - 10:30am
26 Alan Liu
27
28 Topics:
29 1. What is the date/time support in ICU?
30 2. What is the timezone support in ICU?
31 3. What kind of formatting and parsing support is available in ICU, i.e.
32 NumberFormat, DateFormat, MessageFormat?
33
34
35INSTRUCTIONS
36------------
37
38
39This exercise was first developed and tested on ICU release 1.6.0, Win32,
40Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0. It should work on other ICU releases and
41other platforms as well.
42
43 MSVC:
44 Open the file "msgfmt.sln" in Microsoft Visual C++.
45
46 Unix:
47 - Build and install ICU with a prefix, for example '--prefix=/home/srl/ICU'
48 - Set the variable ICU_PREFIX=/home/srl/ICU and use GNU make in
49 this directory.
50 - You may use 'make check' to invoke this sample.
51
52PROBLEMS
53--------
54
55Problem 0:
56
57 Set up the program, build it, and run it. To start with, the
58 program prints out the word "Message".
59
60Problem 1: Basic Message Formatting (Easy)
61
62 Use a MessageFormat to create a message that prints out "Received
63 <n> argument(s) on <d>.", where n is the number of command line
64 arguments (use argc-1), and d is the date (use Calendar::getNow()).
65
66 HINT: Your message pattern should have a "number" element and a
67 "date" element, and you will need to use Formattable.
68
69Problem 2: ChoiceFormat (Medium)
70
71 We can do better than "argument(s)". Instead, we can display more
72 idiomatic strings, such as "no arguments", "one argument", "two
73 arguments", and for higher values, we can use a number format.
74
75 This kind of value-based switching is done using a ChoiceFormat.
76 However, you seldom needs to create a ChoiceFormat by itself.
77 Instead, most of the time you will supply the ChoiceFormat pattern
78 within a MessageFormat pattern.
79
80 Use a ChoiceFormat pattern within the MessageFormat pattern, instead
81 of the "number" element, to display more idiomatic strings.
82
83 EXTRA: Embed a number element within the choice element to handle
84 values greater than two.
85
86
87ANSWERS
88-------
89
90The exercise includes answers. These are in the "answers" directory,
91and are numbered 1, 2, etc.
92
93If you get stuck and you want to move to the next step, copy the
94answers file into the main directory in order to proceed. E.g.,
95"main_1.cpp" contains the original "main.cpp" file. "main_2.cpp"
96contains the "main.cpp" file after problem 1. Etc.
97
98
99Have fun!
100