README

unicode-data provides Haskell APIs to efficiently access the Unicode character database. Performance is the primary goal in the design of this package.

The Haskell data structures are generated programmatically from the Unicode character database (UCD) files. The latest Unicode version supported by this library is 15.1.0.

Please see the Haddock documentation for reference documentation.

Performance

unicode-data is up to 5 times faster than base ≤ 4.17 (see partial integration to base).

The following benchmark compares the time taken in milliseconds to process all the Unicode code points (except surrogates, private use areas and unassigned), for base-4.16 (GHC 9.2.6) and this package (v0.4). Machine: 8 × AMD Ryzen 5 2500U on Linux.

All
  Unicode.Char.Case.Compat
    isLower
      base:           OK (1.19s)
        17.1 ms ± 241 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.52s)
        3.58 ms ± 125 μs, 0.21x
    isUpper
      base:           OK (0.63s)
        17.5 ms ± 359 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (1.02s)
        3.58 ms ±  48 μs, 0.21x
    toLower
      base:           OK (0.59s)
        16.3 ms ± 524 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.80s)
        5.63 ms ± 129 μs, 0.35x
    toTitle
      base:           OK (3.91s)
        14.9 ms ± 427 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (2.84s)
        5.31 ms ±  37 μs, 0.36x
    toUpper
      base:           OK (2.12s)
        15.4 ms ± 234 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.86s)
        5.80 ms ± 159 μs, 0.38x
  Unicode.Char.General
    generalCategory
      base:           OK (1.16s)
        16.6 ms ± 534 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.62s)
        4.14 ms ± 103 μs, 0.25x
    isAlphaNum
      base:           OK (0.62s)
        17.1 ms ± 655 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.97s)
        3.59 ms ±  51 μs, 0.21x
    isControl
      base:           OK (0.63s)
        17.6 ms ± 494 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.57s)
        3.59 ms ±  90 μs, 0.20x
    isMark
      base:           OK (0.34s)
        17.6 ms ± 695 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (1.00s)
        3.59 ms ±  67 μs, 0.20x
    isPrint
      base:           OK (1.22s)
        17.7 ms ± 492 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (1.92s)
        3.56 ms ±  27 μs, 0.20x
    isPunctuation
      base:           OK (2.23s)
        16.6 ms ± 619 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (1.05s)
        3.60 ms ±  52 μs, 0.22x
    isSeparator
      base:           OK (1.15s)
        16.6 ms ± 439 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.49s)
        3.60 ms ±  85 μs, 0.22x
    isSymbol
      base:           OK (2.11s)
        16.1 ms ± 553 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (1.05s)
        3.58 ms ±  62 μs, 0.22x
  Unicode.Char.General.Compat
    isAlpha
      base:           OK (0.58s)
        17.2 ms ± 502 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (1.02s)
        3.58 ms ±  50 μs, 0.21x
    isLetter
      base:           OK (8.57s)
        16.4 ms ± 553 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (1.05s)
        3.58 ms ±  79 μs, 0.22x
    isSpace
      base:           OK (1.09s)
        7.56 ms ± 159 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.97s)
        3.58 ms ±  46 μs, 0.47x
  Unicode.Char.Numeric.Compat
    isNumber
      base:           OK (0.58s)
        15.7 ms ± 462 μs
      unicode-data:   OK (0.58s)
        3.58 ms ± 107 μs, 0.23x

Partial integration of unicode-data into base

Since base 4.18, unicode-data has been partially integrated to GHC, so there should be no relevant difference. However, using unicode-data allows to select the exact version of Unicode to support, therefore not relying on the version supported by GHC.

Unicode database version update

To update the Unicode version please update the version number in ucd.sh.

To download the Unicode database, run ucd.sh download from the top level directory of the repo to fetch the database in ./ucd.

$ ./ucd.sh download

To generate the Haskell data structure files from the downloaded database files, run ucd.sh generate from the top level directory of the repo.

$ ./ucd.sh generate

Running property doctests

Temporarily add QuickCheck to build depends of library.

$ cabal build
$ cabal-docspec --check-properties --property-variables c

Licensing

unicode-data is an open source project available under a liberal Apache-2.0 license.

Contributing

As an open project we welcome contributions.