com.ibm.icu.text

Class IndexCharacters

java.lang.Object

com.ibm.icu.text.IndexCharacters

public class IndexCharacters
extends Object

A set of characters for use as a UI "index", that is, a list of clickable characters (or character sequences) that allow the user to see a segment of a larger "target" list. That is, each character corresponds to a bucket in the target list, where everything in the bucket is greater than or equal to the character (according to the locale's collation). The intention is to have two main functions; one that produces an index list that is relatively static, and the other is a list that produces roughly equally-sized buckets. Only the first is currently provided.

The static list would be presented as something like

  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 

In the UI, an index character could be omitted if its bucket is empty. For example, if there is nothing in the bucket for Q, then Q could be omitted.

Important Notes:

• Although we say "character" above, the index character could be a sequence, like "CH".
• There could be items in a target list that are less than the first or (much) greater than the last; examples include words from other scripts. The UI could bucket them with the first or last respectively, or have some symbol for those categories.
• The use of the list requires that the target list be sorted according to the locale that is used to create that list.
• For languages without widely accepted sorting methods (eg Chinese/Japanese) the results may appear arbitrary, and it may be best not to use these methods.
• In the initial version, an arbitrary limit of 100 is placed on these lists.

Author:

markdavis

Status:

Draft ICU 4.2.

Field Summary

Fields

Modifier and Type	Field and Description
static char	CGJ

Constructor Summary

Constructors

Constructor and Description
IndexCharacters(ULocale locale) Create the index object.

Method Summary

Methods

Modifier and Type	Method and Description
Map	getAlreadyIn() As the index is built, items may be discarded from the exemplars.
Collection	getIndexCharacters() Get the index characters.
ULocale	getLocale() Get the locale
List	getNoDistinctSorting() As the index is built, items may be discarded from the exemplars.
List	getNotAlphabetic() As the index is built, items may be discarded from the exemplars.

Methods inherited from class java.lang.Object

clone, equals, finalize, getClass, hashCode, notify, notifyAll, toString, wait, wait, wait

Field Detail

CGJ

public static final char CGJ

See Also:

Constant Field Values

Constructor Detail

IndexCharacters

public IndexCharacters(ULocale locale)

Create the index object.

Parameters:

locale -

Status:

Draft ICU 4.2.

Method Detail

getIndexCharacters

public Collection getIndexCharacters()

Get the index characters.

Returns:

A collection including the index characters

Status:

Draft ICU 4.2.

getLocale

public ULocale getLocale()

Get the locale

Returns:

The locale.

Status:

Draft ICU 4.2.

getAlreadyIn

public Map getAlreadyIn()

As the index is built, items may be discarded from the exemplars. This contains some of the discards, and is intended for debugging.

Status:

Internal. This API is ICU internal only.

getNoDistinctSorting

public List getNoDistinctSorting()

As the index is built, items may be discarded from the exemplars. This contains some of the discards, and is intended for debugging.

Status:

Internal. This API is ICU internal only.

getNotAlphabetic

public List getNotAlphabetic()

As the index is built, items may be discarded from the exemplars. This contains some of the discards, and is intended for debugging.

Status:

Internal. This API is ICU internal only.