Character Iterators

There are different ways to break up a string into items that users think of as characters, which can be used for different purposes. Here is a rough description:

• 1. Code points

  2. Spacing Units: don't break conjoining jamo or non-spacing marks

  3. Current grapheme clusters: also don't break spacing combining marks, prepending marks (e.g., prevowels)

  4. Akshas: also don't break between Viramas and following consonants.

We currently offer #1 and #3 in ICU (and CLDR). #1 is not through a break iterator, but is easy.

We could also offer #2 and #4 in ICU, or we could document how people can do it themselves.