---
name: "yaz-icu"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "yaz"
version: "5.38.1-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/yaz-icu"
---

# yaz-icu(1)

YAZ ICU utility

## NAME

yaz-icu - YAZ ICU utility

## SYNOPSIS

**yaz-icu** \[-c *config*\] \[-p *opt*\] \[-s\] \[-x\] \[infile\]

## DESCRIPTION

**yaz-icu** is a utility which demonstrates the ICU chain module of yaz. (yaz/icu.h).

The utility can be used in two ways. It may read some text using an XML configuration for configuring ICU and show text analysis. This mode is triggered by option -c which specifies the configuration to be used. The input file is read from standard input or from a file if infile is specified.

The utility may also show ICU information. This is triggered by option -p.

## OPTIONS

- \-c *config*

  Specifies the file containing ICU chain configuration which is XML based.

- \-p *type*

  Specifies extra information to be printed about the ICU system. If *type* is c then ICU converters are printed. If *type* is l, then available locales are printed. If *type* is t, then available transliterators are printed.

- \-s

  Specifies that output should include sort key as well. Note that sort key differs between ICU versions.

- \-x

  Specifies that output should be XML based rather than "text" based.

## ICU CHAIN CONFIGURATION

The ICU chain configuration specifies one or more rules to convert text data into tokens. The configuration format is XML based.

The toplevel element must be named icu\_chain. The icu\_chain element has one required attribute locale which specifies the ICU locale to be used in the conversion steps.

The icu\_chain element must include elements where each element specifies a conversion step. The conversion is performed in the order in which the conversion steps are specified. Each conversion element takes one attribute: rule which serves as argument to the conversion step.

The following conversion elements are available:

casemap

Converts case (and rule specifies how):

l

Lower case using ICU function u\_strToLower.

u

Upper case using ICU function u\_strToUpper.

t

To title using ICU function u\_strToTitle.

f

Fold case using ICU function u\_strFoldCase.

display

This is a meta step which specifies that a term/token is to be displayed. This term is retrieved in an application using function icu\_chain\_token\_display (yaz/icu.h).

transform

Specifies an ICU transform rule using a transliterator Identifier. The rule attribute is the transliterator Identifier. See **ICU Transforms**\[1\] for more information.

transliterate

Specifies a rule-based transliterator. The rule attribute is the custom transformation rule to be used. See **ICU Transforms**\[1\] for more information.

tokenize

Breaks / tokenizes a string into components using ICU functions ubrk\_open, ubrk\_setText, .. . The rule is one of:

l

Line. ICU: UBRK\_LINE.

s

Sentence. ICU: UBRK\_SENTENCE.

w

Word. ICU: UBRK\_WORD.

c

Character. ICU: UBRK\_CHARACTER.

t

Title. ICU: UBRK\_TITLE.

join

Joins tokens into one string. The rule attribute is the joining string, which may be empty. The join conversion element was added in YAZ 4.2.49.

## EXAMPLES

The following command analyzes text in file text using ICU chain configuration chain.xml:

```
    cat text | yaz-icu -c chain.xml
```

The chain.xml might look as follows:

```
<icu_chain locale="en">
  <transform rule="[:Control:] Any-Remove"/>
  <tokenize rule="w"/>
  <transform rule="[[:WhiteSpace:][:Punctuation:]] Remove"/>
  <transliterate rule="xy > z;"/>
  <display/>
  <casemap rule="l"/>
</icu_chain>
```

## SEE ALSO

[**yaz**(7)](/yaz/7.md)

**ICU Home**\[2\]

**ICU Transforms**\[1\]

## AUTHORS

**Index Data**

## NOTES

- 1\.

  ICU Transforms

  https://unicode-org.github.io/icu/userguide/transforms/general/

- 2\.

  ICU Home

  https://github.com/unicode-org/icu