(libidn.info.gz) Introduction

 
 1 Introduction
 **************
 
 GNU Libidn is a fully documented implementation of the Stringprep,
 Punycode and IDNA specifications.  Libidn's purpose is to encode and
 decode internationalized domain name strings.  There are native C, C#
 and Java libraries.
 
    The C library contains a generic Stringprep implementation.  Profiles
 for Nameprep, iSCSI, SASL, XMPP and Kerberos V5 are included.  Punycode
 and ASCII Compatible Encoding (ACE) via IDNA are supported.  A
 mechanism to define Top-Level Domain (TLD) specific validation tables,
 and to compare strings against those tables, is included.  Default
 tables for some TLDs are also included.
 
    The Stringprep API consists of two main functions, one for converting
 data from the system's native representation into UTF-8, and one
 function to perform the Stringprep processing.  Adding a new Stringprep
 profile for your application within the API is straightforward.  The
 Punycode API consists of one encoding function and one decoding
 function.  The IDNA API consists of the ToASCII and ToUnicode
 functions, as well as an high-level interface for converting entire
 domain names to and from the ACE encoded form.  The TLD API consists of
 one set of functions to extract the TLD name from a domain string, one
 set of functions to locate the proper TLD table to use based on the TLD
 name, and core functions to validate a string against a TLD table, and
 some utility wrappers to perform all the steps in one call.
 
    The library is used by, e.g., GNU SASL and Shishi to process user
 names and passwords.  Libidn can be built into GNU Libc to enable a new
 system-wide getaddrinfo flag for IDN processing.
 
    Libidn is developed for the GNU/Linux system, but runs on over 20
 Unix platforms (including Solaris, IRIX, AIX, and Tru64) and Windows.
 The library is written in C and (parts of) the API is also accessible
 from C++, Emacs Lisp, Python and Java.  A native Java and C# port is
 included.
 
    Also included is a command line tool, several self tests, code
 examples, and more.
(libidn.info.gz) Introduction

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