Preface
The work on I18Nv2 has actually started as a refactoring of I18N, but after
some time I figured out that too many BC breaking changes were applied,
so the release of a new major version was suggested.
Differences to I18N
I18N was modeled after Java OO practice and it provides a bunch of classes
for each formatting action (numbers, currencies, dates).
I18Nv2 takes another approach and provides all formatting functionality
within one class, which is
I18Nv2_Locale.
I18Nv2_Locale is based upon PHPs builtin functionality
of setlocale()
, localeconv
() and iconv
related functions, while I18N completely depends on user contributed
formatting rules.
I wouldn't say I18Nv2's approach is the better one, because it depends on
the internationalization capabilities of the underlying operating system,
but it's simpler and faster - though it is in need of user contributed
date and time formatting rules.
I18N's translation functionality was dropped in favour of the new and
shiny
Translation2.
I18Nv2 still provides an HTTP
negotiator to reveal the users preferred language/locale and charset.
I18Nv2 has translated lists of ISO country and language names for
about 50 different languages. See I18Nv2_Country
and I18Nv2_Language.
