Android leverages the ICU library and CLDR project to provide Unicode and other internationalization support. This document's discussion of Unicode and internationalization support is divided into two sections: Android 6.0 (API level 23) and lower, and Android 7.0 (API level 24) and higher.
Unicode and internationalization support through Android 6.0 (API level 23)
The Android platform uses ICU and CLDR to implement various
classes for handling both Latin and non-Latin orthographies, exposing classes
like Locale
, Character
, and many subclasses of
java.text
. An app that requires internationalization functionalities beyond
the exposed classes, and targets versions of the platform through Android 6.0
(API level 23), must include the ICU library.
Versioning
Successive releases of the Android platform correspond to newer versions of ICU (and the corresponding CLDR and Unicode versions). Table 1 shows this correspondence through Android 6.0 (API level 23).
Table 1. ICU and CLDR versions used through Android 6.0 (API level 23).
Platform (API level) | ICU | CLDR | Unicode |
---|---|---|---|
Android 1.5–2.0 (API levels 3–7) | 3.8 | 1.5 | 5.0 |
Android 2.2 (API level 8) | 4.2 | 1.7 | 5.1 |
Android 2.3–3.0 (API levels 9–13) | 4.4 | 1.8 | 5.2 |
Android 4.0 (API levels 14–15) | 4.6 | 1.9 | 6.0 |
Android 4.1 (API levels 16–17) | 4.8 | 2.0 | 6.0 |
Android 4.3 (API level 18) | 50 | 22.1 | 6.2 |
Android 4.4 (API levels 19–20) | 51 | 23 | 6.2 |
Android 5.0 (API levels 21–22) | 53 | 25 | 6.3 |
Android 6.0 (API level 23) | 55.1 | 27.0.1 | 7.0 |
Apps targeting Android 7.0 (API level 24) or higher can leverage more comprehensive support for Unicode and internationalization that is exposed by the Android framework. The next section of this document provides details about that support.
Unicode and internationalization support in Android 7.0 (API level 24) and higher
Starting from Android 7.0 (API level 24), the Android platform
exposes a subset of the ICU4J APIs for app developers
to use under the android.icu
package.
ICU4J is an open-source, widely used set of Java libraries providing Unicode
and internationalization support for software applications.
The ICU4J APIs use localization data present on the device. As a result, you can reduce your app's footprint by not compiling the ICU4J libraries into your app; instead, you can simply call out to them in the framework. (In this case, you may want to provide multiple versions of your APK, so users running versions of Android lower than Android 7.0 (API level 24) can download a version of the app that contains the ICU4J libraries.)
This document begins by providing some basic information on the minimum Android API levels required to support these libraries. It then explains what you need to know about the Android-specific implementation of ICU4J. Finally, it tells you how to use the ICU4J APIs in the Android framework.
ICU4J on Android
Android exposes a subset of the ICU4J APIs via the
android.icu
package, rather than com.ibm.icu
. The
Android framework may choose not to
expose ICU4J APIs for various reasons: for example, because APIs are deprecated
or not declared stable. As the ICU team deprecates APIs in the future,
Android will also mark them as deprecated but will continue to include them.
Here are a few important things to note:
- The ICU4J Android framework APIs do not include all the ICU4J APIs.
- The APIs in the Android framework do not replace Android’s support for localizing with resources.
- In some cases, the Android framework supports more characters than do
the ICU libraries. This is true, for example, of the
android.text
class's support for emoji.
Migrating to the android.icu package from com.ibm.icu
If you are already using the ICU4J APIs in your app, and the
android.icu
APIs meet your requirements, then migrating to
the framework APIs requires you to change your Java imports
from com.ibm.icu
to android.icu
. You may then
remove your own copy of ICU4J files from the app.
Note: The ICU4J framework APIs use the android.icu
namespace instead of com.ibm.icu
. This is to avoid namespace
conflicts in apps that contain their own com.ibm.icu
libraries.
Migrating to android.icu APIs from other Android SDK APIs
Some classes in the java
andandroid
packages have
equivalents to those found in ICU4J. However, ICU4J often provides broader
support for standards and languages.
Table 2 shows some examples of these equivalencies to get you started:
Table 2.Android and Java ICU4J classes
Class | Alternatives |
---|---|
java.lang.Character |
android.icu.lang.UCharacter |
java.text.BreakIterator |
android.icu.text.BreakIterator |
java.text.DecimalFormat |
android.icu.text.DecimalFormat |
java.util.Calendar |
android.icu.util.Calendar |
android.text.BidiFormatter
|
android.icu.text.Bidi
|
android.text.format.DateFormat
|
android.icu.text.DateFormat
|
android.text.format.DateUtils |
android.icu.text.DateFormat
android.icu.text.RelativeDateTimeFormatter
|
ICU4C on Android
Android exposes a subset of the ICU4C APIs via the libicu.so
library,
rather than libicuuc.so
or libicui18n.so
. The APIs are available
starting with Android 12 (API level 31). The NDK headers are available starting with
the NDK release r22b.
No C++ API is exposed through the Android NDK. Some of the C APIs are not available yet.
Versioning
Successive releases of the Android platform correspond to newer versions of ICU (and the corresponding CLDR and Unicode versions). Table 3 shows this correspondence starting from Android 7.0 (API level 24).
Table 3. ICU and CLDR versions used in Android 7.0 (API level 24) and higher.
Platform (API level) | ICU | CLDR | Unicode |
---|---|---|---|
Android 7.0 - 7.1 (API levels 24 - 25) | 56 | 28 | 8.0 |
Android 8.0 - 8.1 (API levels 26 - 27) | 58.2 | 30.0.3 | 9.0 |
Android 9 (API level 28) | 60.2 | 32.0.1 | 10.0 |
Android 10 (API level 29) | 63.2 | 34 | 11.0 |
Android 11 (API level 30) | 66.1 | 36 | 13.0 |
Android 12 (API level 31) | 68.2 | 38.1 | 13.0 |
24h/12h Time format setting
ICU on Android does not observe the user's 24h/12h time format setting (obtained fromDateFormat.is24HourFormat()
).
In order to observe the setting, either use
DateFormat
or
DateUtils
time formatting methods or use ICU time formatting patterns with appropriate hour pattern
symbols ('h' for 12h, 'H' for 24h) for different is24HourFormat()
return values.
For example, this code will generate a string with current time that observes the user's 12h/24h setting:
Kotlin
val skeleton: String = if (DateFormat.is24HourFormat(context)) "Hm" else "hm" val formattedTime: String = android.icu.text.DateFormat.getInstanceForSkeleton( skeleton, Locale.getDefault()).format(Date() )
Java
String skeleton = DateFormat.is24HourFormat(context) ? "Hm" : "hm"; String formattedTime = android.icu.text.DateFormat.getInstanceForSkeleton(skeleton, Locale.getDefault()).format(new Date());
Stability of Transliterator
Starting from Android 10 (API level 29),Transliterator
is provided to transliterates text from one format to another. The set of available transliteation
IDs is unstable across Android releases and devices. Device manufacturers may add extra
transliteration IDs. Developers must check the available IDs (obtained from
Transliterator.getAvailableIDs()
)
before transliterating text.
Licensing
ICU4J is released under the ICU license. For details, see the ICU User Guide.