Globalphone

GlobalPhone parses, validates, and formats local and international phone numbers

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GlobalPhone parses, validates, and formats local and international phone numbers according to the E.164 standard.

Store and display phone numbers in your app. Accept phone number input in national or international format. Convert phone numbers to international strings (+13125551212) for storage and retrieval. Present numbers in national format ((312) 555-1212) in your UI.

Designed with the future in mind. GlobalPhone uses format specifications from Google's open-source libphonenumber database. No need to upgrade the library when a new phone format is introduced—just generate a new copy of the database and check it into your app.

Installation

  1. Add the GlobalPhone nuget package to your app. For example, using Package Manager Console:

    PM> Install-Package GlobalPhone
    
  2. Use GlobalPhoneDbgen to convert Google's libphonenumber PhoneNumberMetaData.xml file into a JSON database for GlobalPhone. You can either install it using nuget in some project:

    PM> Install-Package GlobalPhoneDbgen
    

Or you can add it as a solution level package.

However you have installed it, you can then use the command prompt to execute the exe:

    CMD> .\packages\GlobalPhoneDbgen\tools\GlobalPhoneDbgen.exe > db/global_phone.json
  1. Tell GlobalPhone where to find the database:

    GlobalPhone.DbPath = "db/global_phone.json";
    

Examples

Parse an international number string into a GlobalPhone::Number object:

var number = GlobalPhone.Parse("+1-312-555-1212");
# => #<GlobalPhone::Number Territory=#<GlobalPhone::Territory CountryCode=1 Name=US> NationalString="3125551212">

Query the country code and likely territory name of the number:

number.CountryCode
# => "1"

number.Territory.Name
# => "US"

Present the number in national and international formats:

number.NationalFormat
# => "(312) 555-1212"

number.InternationalFormat
# => "+1 312-555-1212"

Is the number valid? (Note: this is not definitive. For example, the number here is "IsValid" by format, but there are no US numbers that start with 555. The IsValid method may return false positives, but should not return false negatives unless the database is out of date.)

number.IsValid
# => true

Get the number's normalized E.164 international string:

number.InternationalString
# => "+13125551212"

Parse a number in national format for a given territory:

number = GlobalPhone.Parse("(0) 20-7031-3000", "gb");
# => #<GlobalPhone::Number Territory=#<GlobalPhone::Territory CountryCode=44 Name=GB> NationalString="2070313000">

Parse an international number using a territory's international dialing prefix:

number = GlobalPhone.Parse("00 1 3125551212", "gb");
# => #<GlobalPhone::Number Territory=#<GlobalPhone::Territory CountryCode=1 Name=US> NationalString="3125551212">

Set the default territory to Great Britain (territory names are ISO 3166-1 Alpha-2 codes):

GlobalPhone.DefaultTerritoryName = "gb";
# => "gb"

GlobalPhone.Parse("(0) 20-7031-3000");
# => #<GlobalPhone::Number Territory=#<GlobalPhone::Territory CountryCode=44 Name=GB> NationalString="2070313000">

Shortcuts for validating a phone number:

GlobalPhone.Validate("+1 312-555-1212");
# => true

GlobalPhone.Validate("+442070313000");
# => true

GlobalPhone.Validate("(0) 20-7031-3000");
# => false

GlobalPhone.Validate("(0) 20-7031-3000", "gb");
# => true

Shortcuts for normalizing a phone number in E.164 format:

GlobalPhone.Normalize("(312) 555-1212");
# => "+13125551212"

GlobalPhone.Normalize("+442070313000");
# => "+442070313000"

GlobalPhone.Normalize("(0) 20-7031-3000");
# => #<GlobalPhone::FailedToParseNumberException>

GlobalPhone.Normalize("(0) 20-7031-3000", "gb");
# => "+442070313000"

Caveats

GlobalPhone currently does not parse emergency numbers or SMS short code numbers.

Validation is not definitive and may return false positives, but should not return false negatives unless the database is out of date.

Territory heuristics are imprecise. Parsing a number will usually result in the territory being set to the primary territory of the region. For example, Canadian numbers will be parsed with a territory of US. (In most cases this does not matter, but if your application needs to perform geolocation using phone numbers, GlobalPhone may not be a good fit.)

License

Copyright © 2013 Sam Stephenson, Oskar Gewalli

Released under the MIT license. See LICENSE for details.