How to enumerate the LOCALIZED alphabet in C#?

Question

First of all, this is not a duplicate of: Quickest way to enumerate the alphabet

Because I need to get all the characters of the alphabet OF AN ARBITRARY (variable) LANGUAGE, and that in the correct ordering sequence.

How can I do that without knowing the alphabet of every possible culture/language ? System.Gobalization.Cultureinfo for example has information on date format, and a sorting method, and codepage info. But not info on the alphabet itselfs. Forthermore 'A' to 'Z' ordering iterating won't do, because German for example has characters such as ÄÖÜ, which are after 'Z' in the codepage numbering, but follow after aou when sorting.

Can I somehow use the codepages to get all the characters, and sort them somehow ? By 'all the characters' I mean all letters, including numbers, but not punctuation marks. And possibly only upper XOR lowercase.

Tapley

Answer 1

First off, let me say that I agree with what everyone else is saying. Would you consider the character é to be a valid US English character? It gets used pretty often but its not in the normal "a-z".

That said, here's some code (VB2010). This code calls into the unmanaged function GetLocaleInfoW and asks for a LOCALESIGNATURE structure which contains Unicode code point ranges. This information is used to determine what ranges are needed for a given font.

The Char structure doesn't support all of the Unicode code points so the function returns Strings instead. Look for "Surrogate pair" at the bottom of that link for more info.

This code doesn't do everything that you want, unfortunately. For example, the oft cited Finnish language doesn't have the letter W but in Windows the character exists in the valid code-point range. I don't know a way of getting down to the nitty-gritty on that.

Option Strict On
Option Explicit On

Imports System.Runtime.InteropServices

Public Class Form1

    Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        ''//Create our helper function
        Dim UCR As New UnicodeCharRanges()

        ''//Get our ranges for ja-JP
        Dim Ranges = UCR.GetUnicodeRanges("ja-JP")
        If Ranges IsNot Nothing Then
            ''//Get our characters (strings actually)
            Dim Chars = UCR.GetCharactersForUnicodeRanges(Ranges)
            Trace.WriteLine(Chars.Count) ''//28351

            ''//Include surrogate pairs as letters. .Net does not have a way to determine if these should be considered letters
            Chars = UCR.GetCharactersForUnicodeRanges(Ranges, True)
            Trace.WriteLine(Chars.Count) ''//71615
        End If

        ''//Get our ranges for en-US
        Ranges = UCR.GetUnicodeRanges("en-US")
        If Ranges IsNot Nothing Then
            ''//Get our characters (strings actually)
            Dim Chars = UCR.GetCharactersForUnicodeRanges(Ranges)
            Trace.WriteLine(Chars.Count) ''//117
        End If


    End Sub
End Class
Public Class UnicodeCharRanges
#Region " Unmanaged "
    <DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError:=True, CharSet:=CharSet.Unicode)> _
    Private Shared Function GetLocaleInfoW(ByVal locale As Integer, ByVal LCType As Integer, ByRef lpLCData As LOCALESIGNATURE, ByVal cchData As Integer) As Integer
    End Function
    Private LOCALE_FONTSIGNATURE As Integer = &H58
    <StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)>
    Private Structure LOCALESIGNATURE
        <MarshalAs(System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst:=4)> Dim lsUsb() As Integer
        <MarshalAs(System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst:=2)> Dim lsCsbDefault() As Integer
        <MarshalAs(System.Runtime.InteropServices.UnmanagedType.ByValArray, SizeConst:=2)> Dim lsCsbSupported() As Integer
        Public Sub Initialize()
            ReDim lsUsb(3)
            ReDim lsCsbDefault(1)
            ReDim lsCsbSupported(1)
        End Sub
    End Structure
#End Region
#Region " Locals "
    Private AllRanges As List(Of UnicodeRangeInfo)
#End Region
    Private Sub LoadRanges()
        ''//Ranges from http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd374090%28VS.85%29.aspx
        AllRanges = New List(Of UnicodeRangeInfo)
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(0, &H0, &H7F, "Basic Latin"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(1, &H80, &HFF, "Latin-1 Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(2, &H100, &H17F, "Latin Extended-A"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(3, &H180, &H24F, "Latin Extended-B"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(4, &H250, &H2AF, "IPA Extensions"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(4, &H1D00, &H1D7F, "Phonetic Extensions"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(4, &H1D80, &H1DBF, "Phonetic Extensions Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(5, &H2B0, &H2FF, "Spacing Modifier Letters"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(5, &HA700, &HA71F, "Modifier Tone Letters"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(6, &H300, &H36F, "Combining Diacritical Marks"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(6, &H1DC0, &H1DFF, "Combining Diacritical Marks Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(7, &H370, &H3FF, "Greek and Coptic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(8, &H2C80, &H2CFF, "Coptic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(9, &H400, &H4FF, "Cyrillic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(9, &H500, &H52F, "Cyrillic Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(9, &H2DE0, &H2DFF, "Cyrillic Extended-A"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(9, &HA640, &HA69F, "Cyrillic Extended-B"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(10, &H530, &H58F, "Armenian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(11, &H590, &H5FF, "Hebrew"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(12, &HA500, &HA63F, "&hVai"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(13, &H600, &H6FF, "Arabic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(13, &H750, &H77F, "Arabic Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(14, &H7C0, &H7FF, "NKo"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(15, &H900, &H97F, "Devanagari"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(16, &H980, &H9FF, "Bengali"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(17, &HA00, &HA7F, "Gurmukhi"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(18, &HA80, &HAFF, "Gujarati"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(19, &HB00, &HB7F, "Oriya"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(20, &HB80, &HBFF, "Tamil"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(21, &HC00, &HC7F, "Telugu"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(22, &HC80, &HCFF, "Kannada"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(23, &HD00, &HD7F, "Malayalam"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(24, &HE00, &HE7F, "Thai"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(25, &HE80, &HEFF, "Lao"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(26, &H10A0, &H10FF, "Georgian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(26, &H2D00, &H2D2F, "Georgian Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(27, &H1B00, &H1B7F, "Balinese"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(28, &H1100, &H11FF, "Hangul Jamo"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(29, &H1E00, &H1EFF, "Latin Extended Additional"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(29, &H2C60, &H2C7F, "Latin Extended-C"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(29, &HA720, &HA7FF, "Latin Extended-D"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(30, &H1F00, &H1FFF, "Greek Extended"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(31, &H2000, &H206F, "General Punctuation"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(31, &H2E00, &H2E7F, "Supplemental Punctuation"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(32, &H2070, &H209F, "Superscripts And Subscripts"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(33, &H20A0, &H20CF, "Currency Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(34, &H20D0, &H20FF, "Combining Diacritical Marks For Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(35, &H2100, &H214F, "Letterlike Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(36, &H2150, &H218F, "Number Forms"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(37, &H2190, &H21FF, "Arrows"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(37, &H27F0, &H27FF, "Supplemental Arrows-A"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(37, &H2900, &H297F, "Supplemental Arrows-B"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(37, &H2B00, &H2BFF, "Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(38, &H2200, &H22FF, "Mathematical Operators"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(38, &H27C0, &H27EF, "Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-A"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(38, &H2980, &H29FF, "Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(38, &H2A00, &H2AFF, "Supplemental Mathematical Operators"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(39, &H2300, &H23FF, "Miscellaneous Technical"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(40, &H2400, &H243F, "Control Pictures"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(41, &H2440, &H245F, "Optical Character Recognition"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(42, &H2460, &H24FF, "Enclosed Alphanumerics"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(43, &H2500, &H257F, "Box Drawing"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(44, &H2580, &H259F, "Block Elements"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(45, &H25A0, &H25FF, "Geometric Shapes"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(46, &H2600, &H26FF, "Miscellaneous Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(47, &H2700, &H27BF, "Dingbats"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(48, &H3000, &H303F, "CJK Symbols And Punctuation"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(49, &H3040, &H309F, "Hiragana"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(50, &H30A0, &H30FF, "Katakana"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(50, &H31F0, &H31FF, "Katakana Phonetic Extensions"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(51, &H3100, &H312F, "Bopomofo"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(51, &H31A0, &H31BF, "Bopomofo Extended"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(52, &H3130, &H318F, "Hangul Compatibility Jamo"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(53, &HA840, &HA87F, "Phags-pa"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(54, &H3200, &H32FF, "Enclosed CJK Letters And Months"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(55, &H3300, &H33FF, "CJK Compatibility"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(56, &HAC00, &HD7AF, "Hangul Syllables"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(57, &HD800, &HDFFF, "Non-Plane 0. Note that setting this bit implies that there is at least one supplementary code point beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) that is supported by this font. See Surrogates and Supplementary Characters."))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(58, &H10900, &H1091F, "Phoenician"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(59, &H2E80, &H2EFF, "CJK Radicals Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(59, &H2F00, &H2FDF, "Kangxi Radicals"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(59, &H2FF0, &H2FFF, "Ideographic Description Characters"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(59, &H3190, &H319F, "Kanbun"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(59, &H3400, &H4DBF, "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(59, &H4E00, &H9FFF, "CJK Unified Ideographs"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(59, &H20000, &H2A6DF, "CJK Unified Ideographs Extension B"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(60, &HE000, &HF8FF, "Private Use Area"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(61, &H31C0, &H31EF, "CJK Strokes"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(61, &HF900, &HFAFF, "CJK Compatibility Ideographs"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(61, &H2F800, &H2FA1F, "CJK Compatibility Ideographs Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(62, &HFB00, &HFB4F, "Alphabetic Presentation Forms"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(63, &HFB50, &HFDFF, "Arabic Presentation Forms-A"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(64, &HFE20, &HFE2F, "Combining Half Marks"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(65, &HFE10, &HFE1F, "Vertical Forms"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(65, &HFE30, &HFE4F, "CJK Compatibility Forms"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(66, &HFE50, &HFE6F, "Small Form Variants"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(67, &HFE70, &HFEFF, "Arabic Presentation Forms-B"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(68, &HFF00, &HFFEF, "Halfwidth And Fullwidth Forms"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(69, &HFFF0, &HFFFF, "Specials"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(70, &HF00, &HFFF, "Tibetan"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(71, &H700, &H74F, "Syriac"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(72, &H780, &H7BF, "Thaana"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(73, &HD80, &HDFF, "Sinhala"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(74, &H1000, &H109F, "Myanmar"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(75, &H1200, &H137F, "Ethiopic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(75, &H1380, &H139F, "Ethiopic Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(75, &H2D80, &H2DDF, "Ethiopic Extended"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(76, &H13A0, &H13FF, "Cherokee"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(77, &H1400, &H167F, "Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(78, &H1680, &H169F, "Ogham"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(79, &H16A0, &H16FF, "Runic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(80, &H1780, &H17FF, "Khmer"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(80, &H19E0, &H19FF, "Khmer Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(81, &H1800, &H18AF, "Mongolian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(82, &H2800, &H28FF, "Braille Patterns"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(83, &HA000, &HA48F, "Yi Syllables"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(83, &HA490, &HA4CF, "Yi Radicals"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(84, &H1700, &H171F, "Tagalog"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(84, &H1720, &H173F, "Hanunoo"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(84, &H1740, &H175F, "Buhid"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(84, &H1760, &H177F, "Tagbanwa"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(85, &H10300, &H1032F, "Old Italic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(86, &H10330, &H1034F, "Gothic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(87, &H10400, &H1044F, "Deseret"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(88, &H1D000, &H1D0FF, "Byzantine Musical Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(88, &H1D100, &H1D1FF, "Musical Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(88, &H1D200, &H1D24F, "Ancient Greek Musical Notation"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(89, &H1D400, &H1D7FF, "Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(90, &HFF000, &HFFFFD, "Private Use (plane 15)"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(90, &H100000, &H10FFFD, "Private Use (plane 16)"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(91, &HFE00, &HFE0F, "Variation Selectors"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(91, &HE0100, &HE01EF, "Variation Selectors Supplement"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(92, &HE0000, &HE007F, "Tags"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(93, &H1900, &H194F, "Limbu"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(94, &H1950, &H197F, "Tai Le"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(95, &H1980, &H19DF, "New Tai Lue"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(96, &H1A00, &H1A1F, "Buginese"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(97, &H2C00, &H2C5F, "Glagolitic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(98, &H2D30, &H2D7F, "Tifinagh"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(99, &H4DC0, &H4DFF, "Yijing Hexagram Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(100, &HA800, &HA82F, "Syloti Nagri"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(101, &H10000, &H1007F, "Linear B Syllabary"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(101, &H10080, &H100FF, "Linear B Ideograms"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(101, &H10100, &H1013F, "Aegean Numbers"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(102, &H10140, &H1018F, "Ancient Greek Numbers"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(103, &H10380, &H1039F, "Ugaritic"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(104, &H103A0, &H103DF, "Old Persian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(105, &H10450, &H1047F, "Shavian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(106, &H10480, &H104AF, "Osmanya"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(107, &H10800, &H1083F, "Cypriot Syllabary"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(108, &H10A00, &H10A5F, "Kharoshthi"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(109, &H1D300, &H1D35F, "Tai Xuan Jing Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(110, &H12000, &H123FF, "Cuneiform"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(110, &H12400, &H1247F, "Cuneiform Numbers and Punctuation"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(111, &H1D360, &H1D37F, "Counting Rod Numerals"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(112, &H1B80, &H1BBF, "Sundanese"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(113, &H1C00, &H1C4F, "Lepcha"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(114, &H1C50, &H1C7F, "Ol Chiki"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(115, &HA880, &HA8DF, "Saurashtra"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(116, &HA900, &HA92F, "Kayah Li"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(117, &HA930, &HA95F, "Rejang"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(118, &HAA00, &HAA5F, "Cham"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(119, &H10190, &H101CF, "hAncient Symbols"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(120, &H101D0, &H101FF, "Phaistos Disc"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(121, &H10280, &H1029F, "Lycian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(121, &H102A0, &H102DF, "Carian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(121, &H10920, &H1093F, "Lydian"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(122, &H1F000, &H1F02F, "Mahjong Tiles"))
        AllRanges.Add(New UnicodeRangeInfo(122, &H1F030, &H1F09F, "Domino Tiles"))
    End Sub
    Sub New()
        LoadRanges()
    End Sub
    Public Function GetCharactersForUnicodeRanges(ByVal ranges As List(Of UnicodeRangeInfo), Optional ByVal returnSurrogatePairs As Boolean = False) As List(Of String)
        ''//The Char structure cannot represent all Unicode characters so we need to return strings. See "Surrogate pairs" at the bottom of http://www.yoda.arachsys.com/csharp/unicode.html
        Dim Ret As New List(Of String)
        Dim S As String
        Dim C As Char
        ''//Loop through all of the ranges
        For Each R In ranges
            ''//Loop from start to end
            For I = R.StartRange To R.EndRange
                ''//Convert the integer to either a char or a surrogate pair string
                S = Char.ConvertFromUtf32(I)
                ''//See if the character is a valid Char
                If Char.TryParse(S, C) Then
                    ''//See if the Char is a letter
                    If Char.IsLetter(C) Then Ret.Add(C)
                ElseIf returnSurrogatePairs Then
                    ''//If asked to also return surrogate pairs then do so
                    Ret.Add(S)
                End If
            Next
        Next

        Return Ret
    End Function
    Public Function GetUnicodeRanges(ByVal cultureName As String) As List(Of UnicodeRangeInfo)
        ''//Get the culture info for the given locale
        Dim CI As New System.Globalization.CultureInfo(cultureName)

        ''//Create and init our structure that will get passed
        Dim FI As New LOCALESIGNATURE()
        FI.Initialize()

        ''//Determine the size of our structure
        Dim SI = Marshal.SizeOf(FI)

        ''//Call the unmanaged function
        Dim Result As Integer = GetLocaleInfoW(CI.LCID, LOCALE_FONTSIGNATURE, FI, SI)
        If Result = 0 Then
            ''//If we get a zero then there's an error. This should call GetLastError ideally
            Return Nothing
        Else
            ''//The lsUsb field represents a 128 bit value but we pass it into the unmanaged function as an array of 4 integers.
            ''//The code below converts the array of integers to a giant binary string.
            ''//There are of course better ways to do this that will save 5ms but I will leave that to you
            Dim Usb = StrReverse(String.Format("{0}{1}{2}{3}",
                                               Convert.ToString(FI.lsUsb(3), 2).PadLeft(32, "0"c),
                                               Convert.ToString(FI.lsUsb(2), 2).PadLeft(32, "0"c),
                                               Convert.ToString(FI.lsUsb(1), 2).PadLeft(32, "0"c),
                                               Convert.ToString(FI.lsUsb(0), 2).PadLeft(32, "0"c)))

            ''//This will be our return ranges
            Dim LocaleRanges As New List(Of UnicodeRangeInfo)

            Dim loopI As Integer

            ''//Loop through the bits
            ''//Technically the last couple of bits aren't supposed to be used but there is no value in UnicodeRangeInfo for them anyway so it does not matter
            For I = 0 To (Usb.Length - 1)
                ''//This is to stop the compiler complaining about lambda expressions
                loopI = I

                ''//If the bit is set
                If Usb(I) = "1"c Then
                    ''//Find all ranges in the master range list with that bit set
                    LocaleRanges.AddRange(AllRanges.FindAll(Function(n) n.Bit = loopI))
                End If
            Next
            Return LocaleRanges
        End If
    End Function

    Public Structure UnicodeRangeInfo
        Public Property Name As String
        Public Property StartRange As Integer
        Public Property EndRange As Integer
        Public Property Bit As Integer
        Public Sub New(ByVal bit As Integer, ByVal startRange As Integer, ByVal endRange As Integer, ByVal name As String)
            Me.Bit = bit
            Me.StartRange = startRange
            Me.EndRange = endRange
            Me.Name = name
        End Sub
        Public Overrides Function ToString() As String
            Return String.Format("{0}-{1} : {2}", Convert.ToString(Me.StartRange, 16).PadLeft(8, "0"c), Convert.ToString(Me.EndRange, 16).PadLeft(8, "0"c), Me.Name)
        End Function
    End Structure
End Class

Excrescent

Answer 2

I don't think that the .Net framework provides what you want. First of all, not all languages have alphabets in the western sense of the word. Second, even if you limit your coverage to those languages that have alphabets, iterating through the contents of a code page won't work because many code pages cover several languages (eg, CP 1252 covers the main western european languages). Third, some of the more recently supported languages on Windows don't have code pages. I don't think there is a solution outside of having a priori knowledge of the alphabets of the languages you're interested in.

Perhaps if you explained what you are trying to achieve, a better solution could be suggested.

Andri

Wrong, Japanese has the Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana alphabets and is a syllabary. And Chinese has something like 200+ radicals, after which words are ordered. Any moderately popular language has something like an alphabet, how else could you use a dictionary... – Tapley

+1 for "Perhaps if you explained what you are trying to achieve, a better solution could be suggested." – Jive

@MarkJ: I'm trying to make a table containing too many names accessible by giving all letters of the alphabet in a link, and display a list of all names starting with this letter. – Tapley

@Quandary: Or several. Chinese dictionaries are often ordered by radicals, but depending on the target group, there are also Chinese dictionaries that are ordered by the Latin transliteration of syllables. And moreover, as you noted the German language uses the additional letters ä, ö and ü, but those, as well as ß, are not normally considered individual parts of the alphabet when enumerating all letters of the alphabet. These may be reasons why you won't find "a canonical alphabet" for a given culture in the .NET classes. – Matteo

Answer 3

If your reason for wanting to enumerate an alphabet is to produce an index, then you can use Windows.Globalization.Collation.CharacterGroupings

Armoured

@Eric MSFT: I can get that Windows.Globalization.Collation.CharacterGrouping characterGrouping = characterGroupings.ElementAt(0); in csharp, but then what do I do with it ? There's only a property First and a property Label ? – Tapley

@SamuelNeff: Those properties allow you to divide a list items that are sorted into the appropriate groups. Everything which sorts after First should be given the label Label (until the next Character Group which defines a new First). – Armoured