Intl.Locale.prototype.minimize()

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since September 2020.

The minimize() method of Intl.Locale instances attempts to remove information about this locale that would be added by calling maximize().

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Syntax

js
minimize()

Parameters

None.

Return value

A Intl.Locale instance whose baseName property returns the result of the Remove Likely Subtags algorithm executed against locale.baseName.

Description

This method carries out the reverse of maximize(), removing any language, script, or region subtags from the locale language identifier (essentially the contents of baseName). This is useful when there are superfluous subtags in the language identifier; for instance, "en-Latn" can be simplified to "en", since "Latn" is the only script used to write English. minimize() only affects the main subtags that comprise the language identifier: language, script, and region subtags. Other subtags after the "-u" in the locale identifier are called extension subtags and are not affected by the minimize() method. Examples of these subtags include hourCycle, calendar, and numeric.

Examples

Using minimize

js
const myLocale = new Intl.Locale("fr-Latn-FR", {
  hourCycle: "h12",
  calendar: "gregory",
});
console.log(myLocale.baseName); // Prints "fr-Latn-FR"
console.log(myLocale.toString()); // Prints "fr-Latn-FR-u-ca-gregory-hc-h12"

const myLocMinimized = myLocale.minimize();

// Prints "fr", since French is only written in the Latin script
// and is most likely to be spoken in France.
console.log(myLocMinimized.baseName);

// Prints "fr-u-ca-gregory-hc-h12".
// Note that the extension tags (after "-u") remain unchanged.
console.log(myLocMinimized.toString());

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript Internationalization API Specification
# sec-Intl.Locale.prototype.minimize

Browser compatibility

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See also