ICU4X¶

This file documents the procedures for building with ICU4X.

Enabling ICU4X¶

Add the ac_add_options --enable-icu4x mozconfig. (This is the default)
Do a full build.

Updating the bundled ICU4X data¶

ICU4X data is bundled directly as a rust crate in the intl/icu_testdata. Although this crate is the same name as ICU4X’s icu_testdata crate, it has customized data for Gecko.

The script intl/update-icu4x.sh can generate and update this binary data. If you want to add the new data type, you modify this script and then, run it.

When using ICU4X 1.2.0 data, CLDR 43, and ICU4C 73.1, you have to run the following. The baked data is generated into intl/icu_testdata/data/baked.

$ cd $(TOPSRCDIR)/intl
$ ./update-icu4x.sh https://github.com/unicode-org/icu4x.git icu@1.2.0 43.0.0 release-73-1

ICU4X 1.3 will have new feature “complied_data” that replaces customized icu_testdata. After upgrading to 1.3, we update this document too.

Updating ICU4X¶

If you update ICU4X crate into Gecko, you have to check Cargo.toml in Gecko’s root directory. We might have some hacks to replace crate.io version with a custom version.

C/C++ FFI¶

ICU4X provides icu_capi crate for C/C++ FFI. mozilla::intl::GetDataProvider returns capi::ICU4XDataProvider of icu_capi. It can return valid data until shutting down.

Accessing the data provider from Rust¶

icu_testdata::any() returns any data provider.

If you want to use unstable data provider from Rust, you should add it to intl/icu_testdata/src/lib.rs like the following, then use icu_testdata::unstable().

pub fn unstable() -> UnstableDataProvider {
    UnstableDataProvider
}

Adding new ICU4X features to Gecko¶

To reduce build time and binary size, embedded ICU4X in Gecko is minimal configuration. If you have to add new features, you have to update some files.

Adding the feature to icu_capi entry in js/src/rust/shared/Cargo.toml.
Modify intl/update-icu4x.sh to add generated ICU4X data.
Modify intl/icu_testdata/Cargo.toml to add the data for enabled feature.