The i18n Cookbook - recipies for a global society

Problem:

You want to format a time amount like "5 days" for a locale.

Solution:

TimeUnitFormat from icu4j provides some excellent formatting options for time units.  To use you specify a TimeUnitAmount which contains an amount and a unit.  Then specify a locale on the TimeUnitFormat.

To format 1 day in French:

//Get a TimeUnit
TimeUnit unit = TimeUnit.DAY;
//Specify the unit amount
TimeUnitAmount amount = new TimeUnitAmount(1,unit);
TimeUnitAmount amount2= new TimeUnitAmount(3,unit);
//Get a unit format
TimeUnitFormat format = new TimeUnitFormat();
//Get and set a ULocale
ULocale uloc = new ULocale("fr");
format.setLocale(uloc);
//Format and output
System.out.println(format.format(amount));
System.out.println(format.format(amount2));

The output:

1 jour
3 jours