Getting the alphabet of a language from the Locale in Java

Question

I am making an internationalized app in Java. I need a list of all the letters in a language, starting from the Locale. There are some questions like Alphabet constant in Java? or Create Alphabet List from list : Java which touch on the issue, but I'm wondering is there a Utils class or something where it's already defined and where I can get a list of chars or a String containing all the letters in the alphabet of a language by it's Locale.

Answer 1

You can refer this library and methods in detail, com.ibm.icu.util.LocaleData. Pass argument as Locale.ENGLISH to get alphabets of English.

Answer 2

There are several issues here.

First, I have to point out that there are many languages that aren't alphabetic. Obviously, Chinese, or Japanese are examples of ideographic languages. Unfortunately, it will be very hard, next to impossible to create a list of all the characters in these languages.

Second, although Common Locale Data Repository and as a consequence ICU have predefined sets of index exemplars and example characters this information is far from being complete.

Third, there are languages that use more than one script (aka writing system). Depending on the source of your locale you may or may not know which characters needs to be displayed.

Finally, it is hard to give you right answer when you haven't provided your use case. The design of your application may impose serious limitations on usability or localizability...