Internation​al phone number formatting

I noticed that my iPhone formats phone numbers perfectly. For example the phone number "441219999999" should be formatted as "0121 999 9999" but the number "441606999999" should be "01606 999 999", this is because 0121 is the area code for Birmingham and because it has a large customer base it has 7 digits reserved for numbers rather than 6, whereas 01606 is an area code for a town in Cheshire which only need 6 digits for the number.

...and that's just for UK numbers.

I was wondering if anyone had developed a database of representations for phone numbers given their content (so normalised phone numbers starting with "1" for the USA would be subject to different formatting rules compared to the UK's 44). It would also need to store details on how area codes can have different lengths. And so on.

3 hours ago, W3bbo wrote

I noticed that my iPhone formats phone numbers perfectly. For example the phone number "441219999999" should be formatted as "0121 999 9999" but the number "441606999999" should be "01606 999 999", this is because 0121 is the area code for Birmingham and because it has a large customer base it has 7 digits reserved for numbers rather than 6, whereas 01606 is an area code for a town in Cheshire which only need 6 digits for the number.

...and that's just for UK numbers.

I was wondering if anyone had developed a database of representations for phone numbers given their content (so normalised phone numbers starting with "1" for the USA would be subject to different formatting rules compared to the UK's 44). It would also need to store details on how area codes can have different lengths. And so on.

This can be done easliy with regular expressions.

58 minutes ago, blowdart wrote

*snip*

It really can't - not when individual area codes start having their own rules. Across multiple countries.

I'm not saying that you should use a single regular expression pattern. You'd have to create a "database" of them as the OP asked about.

1 day ago, W3bbo wrote

I noticed that my iPhone formats phone numbers perfectly. For example the phone number "441219999999" should be formatted as "0121 999 9999" but the number "441606999999" should be "01606 999 999", this is because 0121 is the area code for Birmingham and because it has a large customer base it has 7 digits reserved for numbers rather than 6, whereas 01606 is an area code for a town in Cheshire which only need 6 digits for the number.

...and that's just for UK numbers.

I was wondering if anyone had developed a database of representations for phone numbers given their content (so normalised phone numbers starting with "1" for the USA would be subject to different formatting rules compared to the UK's 44). It would also need to store details on how area codes can have different lengths. And so on.

W3bbo:  several years ago i did an early voip calling card pre-paid system using some cisco hardware...  there are some rules you can get but for the most part you need to be a telco to get the number data or build it up by hand,  it's a PIA as every country may have different dialing rules.

so what i did was a set of tables and some code, in my case i was having to lookup the cost of making a call to see if the caller had enough pre-paid funds to even start the call.

so i had a bunch of tables that gave us rates based on the source - to - dest of the call.

@W3bbo: you may want to try libphonenumber. The online JS demo handled perfectly all the numbers I threw at it, from several countries.

As an added bonus, it distinguishes between mobile and landline where the numbering plan permits it.

6 hours ago, Blue Ink wrote

@W3bbo: you may want to try libphonenumber. The online JS demo handled perfectly all the numbers I threw at it, from several countries.

As an added bonus, it distinguishes between mobile and landline where the numbering plan permits it.

Perfect, thanks!

10 hours ago, Blue Ink wrote

@W3bbo: you may want to try libphonenumber. The online JS demo handled perfectly all the numbers I threw at it, from several countries.

As an added bonus, it distinguishes between mobile and landline where the numbering plan permits it.

One of those posts I'm going to save. I don't need it now, but I know that some time down the line, I will.

Thanks for posting.

11 hours ago, Blue Ink wrote

@W3bbo: you may want to try libphonenumber. The online JS demo handled perfectly all the numbers I threw at it, from several countries.

As an added bonus, it distinguishes between mobile and landline where the numbering plan permits it.

39 minutes ago, longzheng wrote

*snip*Very cool find!

I'm going to port this over to C# for this project I'm working on.

1 hour ago, W3bbo wrote

*snip*

I'm going to port this over to C# for this project I'm working on.

Already been done. http://blog.thekieners.com/2011/06/06/using-googles-libphonenumber-in-microsoft-net-with-c/

49 minutes ago, cbae wrote

*snip*

Already been done. http://blog.thekieners.com/2011/06/06/using-googles-libphonenumber-in-microsoft-net-with-c/

Not quite. That version just implements the portion recognition, whereas I need to format phone numbers from their normalised representation.

I'm about 33% of the way through with my conversion right now.