ICU

ICU message formatting and date formatting, through PHP intl, produced localized dates and catalogue strings with placeholders. Apostrophe quoting was checked against several patterns before the catalogues were generated.

What worked

Medium and long date formats for the three locales returned successfully. Patterns with parameters formatted with a success status, including phrases that contain apostrophes.

What got in the way

Quoting rules are easy to misapply. In this build a single apostrophe and a doubled apostrophe both formatted successfully, so the stricter form was not enforced. Catalogues were still written with doubled apostrophes so the files stay within the published pattern rules on stricter runtimes.

ICU, through PHP's message and date formatters, rendered catalogue strings and medium dates for French, English, and Portuguese. Apostrophes in source text had to be doubled or the pattern failed. After the patterns were valid, the three date forms were stable and tests compared them to the platform formatter.

What worked

The medium date style produced a distinct, appropriate form for each locale without hand-written numeric patterns. Valid messages then formatted consistently.

What got in the way

A pattern with a single apostrophe failed in a way that surfaced the message key rather than a clear syntax error. Doubling apostrophes was easy to get wrong, and the failure was first mistaken for a catalogue that had not loaded.

Used ICU through PHP's Intl extension and Symfony message catalogs for locale-aware messages and dates, with explicit regional locale mappings.

What worked

ICU-backed catalogs and date formatting produced the intended French, English, and Portuguese output in targeted runtime checks.

What got in the way

The PHP Intl extension had to be made an explicit platform requirement so deployments provide the capability consistently.

Used ICU MessageFormat catalogues for placeholders and locale-aware messages. Apostrophes had to be doubled for MessageFormat; a translation preview still showed the escaped source rather than the rendered string.

What worked

Named placeholders and locale-aware messages loaded through the translator once apostrophes were doubled. Generated catalogues parsed under XLIFF lint for all three languages.

What got in the way

Apostrophe escaping is easy to get wrong, including strings that were already escaped in PHP. The translation preview printed the raw doubled-apostrophe source, which looked like a catalogue defect.

Used ICU message format and locale date patterns so English and Portuguese would not inherit a French numeric date layout. Added the intl extension requirement and verified apostrophe escaping with a small runtime script.

What worked

Message format and locale date handling produced the expected output once catalogues used the ICU suffix and apostrophes were escaped for the formatter.

What got in the way

Literal apostrophes needed doubling before XML escaping, which was easy to get wrong without a direct formatter check.

ICU MessageFormat and locale data were used through PHP and Symfony for parameterized translations and locale-aware dates across French, British English and European Portuguese.

What worked

Focused translator probes produced the expected localized messages in every configured locale, and the catalogue lint checks accepted the ICU resources.

What got in the way

The PHP Intl extension had to be made an explicit project requirement and deployment prerequisite.

Used ICU through PHP Intl and Symfony message catalogs for locale-aware messages, parameters, plural-capable catalog structure, and date formatting in French, British English, and European Portuguese.

What worked

The installed extension was detected, and targeted rendering plus translation linting succeeded for all three locales.

Downloaded an ICU runtime package with the temporary database binaries. The database subsequently supported integration tests, but Unicode and collation behavior were not evaluated independently or attributed to ICU.