** Introduction:

With PEAR::Numbers_Words class you can change an integer number
to simple words. This can be usefull when you need to spell a currency
value e.g. on an invoice.

You can choose between several languages (language files are located
in Numbers/Words/ directory).

BTW: if you need to change number to currency, use money_format()
PHP function (available since 4.3 (not yet released)). But you must
know that locale LC_MONETARY rules are sometimes unclear.

** Getting started:

First you need to install Numbers_Words PEAR package.
You can do it (as root) with:

  pear install Numbers_Words

In your php script you need to load Numbers/Words.php header file:

  require_once('Numbers/Words.php');

Then you can call Numbers_Words::toWords() function with two
arguments: integer number (can be a string with digits) and
optional locale name (default is en_US):

$ret = Numbers_Words::toWords($num,"en_GB");
if (PEAR::isError($ret)) {
    echo "Error: " . $ret->message . "\n";
  } else {
    echo "Num $num in British English is '<b>$ret</b>'<p>\n";
}

For  this would display:

Num 12340000000 in British English is '<b>twelve thousand million three hundred forty million</b>'<p>

** Current State:

The current release can be found at the PEAR webpage:
  http://pear.php.net/package-info.php?package=Numbers_Words

For the time of writting this Readme file, Numbers_spell package has the
status beta, which means there can be samo bugs, and it is under development.
This is not mature code.

** Development

This package needs help from people, who can write language modules other
than Polish and English.

** Package Content:

  Readme.txt - this file
  ChangeLog  - change log
  test-numbers-words.php  - test file showing Numbers_Words example usage
  Words.php  - main class file, that loads language modules on demand
  Words/lang.{LOCALE_NAME}.php - language modules

There are avaibale the following modules (called by locale name,
in alphabetical order):

  bg     - Bulgarian language (in WIN-1251 charset).
           Author: Kouber Saparev

  cs     - Czech language.
           Author: Petr 'PePa' Pavel

  de     - German language.
           Author: Piotr Klaban

  dk     - Danish language.
           Author: Jesper Veggerby

  en_100 - Donald Knuth number naming system, in English language.
           Author: Piotr Klaban

  en_GB  - British English notation of numbers, where
           one billion is 1000000 times one million.
           1000 times million is just 'thousand million' here.
           I do not use a word billiard here, because
           English people do not use it often, and even could not know it.
           Author: Piotr Klaban

  en_US  - American English notation of numbers, where
           one billion is 1000 times one million
           Author: Piotr Klaban

  es     - Spanish (Castellano) language.
           Author: Xavier Noguer

  es_AR  - Argentinian Spanish language.
           Author: Martin Marrese

  et     - Estonian language.
           Author: Erkki Saarniit

  fr     - French language.
           Author: Kouber Saparev

  fr_BE  - French (Belgium) language.
           Author: Kouber Saparev, Philippe Bajoit

  he     - Hebrew language.
           Author: Hadar Porat

  hu_HU  - Hungarian language.
           Author: Nils Homp

  id     - Indonesia language.
           Authors: Ernas M. Jamil, Arif Rifai Dwiyanto

  it_IT  - Italian language.
           Authors: Filippo Beltramini, Davide Caironi

  lt     - Lithuanian language.
           Author: Laurynas Butkus

  nl     - Dutch language.
           Author: WHAM van Dinter

  pl     - Polish language (in an internet standard charset ISO-8859-2)
           Author: Piotr Klaban

  pt_BR  - Brazilian Portuguese language.
           Authors: Marcelo Subtil Marcal, Mario H.C.T., Igor Feghali

  ro_RO  - Romanian language.
           Author: Bogdan Stancescu	

  ru     - Russian language.
           Author: Andrey Demenev

  sv     - Swedich language.
           Author: Robin Ericsson

  tr_TR  - Turkish language.
           Author: Shahriyar Imanov

** What if numbers have fraction part?

You can split the number by the coma or dot. The example
function was provided by Ernas M. Jamil (see below).
I do not know if the splitting and concatenating numbers
should be supported by Numbers_Words ... Does each language
spell numbers with a 'coma'/'koma'? What do you think?

function num2word($num, $fract = 0) {
        require_once('Numbers/Words.php');

        $num = sprintf("%.".$fract."f", $num);
        $fnum = explode('.', $num);

        $ret =  Numbers_Words::toWords($fnum[0],"id");
        if(!$fract) return $ret;

        $ret .=  ' koma '; // point in english
        $ret .= Numbers_Words::toWords($fnum[1],"id");

        return $ret;
}

** How to convert decimal part and not fraction part of the currency value?

Rob King send me a patch that would allow to leave fraction part in digits.
I.e. you can convert 31.01 into 'thirty-one pounds 01 pence':

  require_once('Numbers/Words.php');
  require_once('Numbers/Words/lang.en_GB.php');

  $obj = new Numbers_Words_en_GB;
  $convert_fraction = false;
  print $obj->toCurrencyWords('GBP', '31', '01', $convert_fraction) . "\n";

** How to write new Language Files:

Just copy existing en_US or en_GB etc. file into lang.{your_country/locale code}.php
and translate digits, numbers, tousands to your language. Then please send it
to the author to the address [email protected].

** Credits

All changes from other people are desrcribed with details in ChangeLog.
There are also names of the people who send me patches etc.
Authors of the language files are mentioned in the language files directly
as the author.