<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE book PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.1.2//EN" 
               "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.1.2/docbookx.dtd">
<book id="index" xmlns:xi="http://www.w3.org/2003/XInclude">
  <bookinfo>
    <title>GNU Libidn API Reference Manual</title>
  </bookinfo>

  <chapter>
    <title>GNU Libidn API Reference Manual</title>

    <para>
GNU Libidn is a fully documented implementation of the Stringprep,
Punycode and IDNA specifications defined by the IETF Internationalized
Domain Names (IDN) working group, used for internationalized domain
names.  The native C, C# and Java libraries are available under the
GNU Lesser General Public License version 2.1.
    </para>

    <para>
The library contains a generic Stringprep implementation that does
Unicode 3.2 NFKC normalization, mapping and prohibitation of
characters, and bidirectional character handling.  Profiles for
Nameprep, iSCSI, SASL and XMPP 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.
    </para>

    <para>
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.
    </para>

    <para>
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.
    </para>

    <para>
Libidn is developed for the GNU/Linux system, but runs on over 20 Unix
platforms (including Solaris, IRIX, AIX, and Tru64) and Windows.
Libidn is written in C and (parts of) the API is accessible from C,
C#, C++, Emacs Lisp, Python and Java.
    </para>

    <para>
Also included is a command line tool, several self tests, code
examples, and more, all licensed under the GNU General Public License
version 3.0.
    </para>

    <para>The internal layout of the library, and how your application
      interact with the various parts of the library, are shown in
      <xref linkend="components"/>.
    </para>

    <figure id="components">
      <title>Components of Libidn</title>
      <graphic fileref="libidn-components.png" format="PNG"></graphic>
    </figure>

    <xi:include href="xml/idna.xml"/>
    <xi:include href="xml/pr29.xml"/>
    <xi:include href="xml/punycode.xml"/>
    <xi:include href="xml/tld.xml"/>
    <xi:include href="xml/stringprep.xml"/>
  </chapter>
</book>
