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- Faced link errors stemmed from mismatch of api definitions of absl::node_hash_set. So explicitly mentioned this lib as dependency during linking. This is common case/solution for absl hash set lib's link errors as per community.
- Decided to continued to have wrapper (stringutil), so that in future it's easy if we decided to change implementation; client code is safe. Changed most of the implementations & data structures in stringutil, to use abseil stuffs more.
- Though absl::string_view is suitable for most cases where we want immutable/read-only string structures, limiting to stringutil apis, not changing public API signatures (even though no compliance issue); reason: reduce dependency on abseil libs.
- Abseil specific changes done:
    - std::set => absl::node_hash_set
    - std::map => absl::node_hash_map
    - Using absl alternatives for “SplitStringUsing” API and “StringHolder” class impl.
    - Replaced manual impl of prefix and suffix checks with absl::StartsWith() and absl::EndsWith.
    - Similarly used absl::StrReplaceAll, absl::StrCat, absl::StrAppend where possible; and for type conversion apis.
- Note: Tried applying parameter packs to replace manually written duplicate ```StrCat``` apis (for accommodating more number of parameters of same type), but it did not go well when different type arguments passed. Eg char, int types to be converted to StringHolder; faced constructor implicit conversion issues.

* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.44

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* Accelerate conversion from integer to string, using abseil StrCat and StrAppend function

* minor code simplification

* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.43

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* fixing: if (${USE_POSIX_THREAD} ... causes a syntax error, adding
a semicolon to the flags

* Metadata updates for release 8.12.41 (#2718)

* Penmetsaa maven update release 8.12.41 (#2719)

* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.41

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* Update README.md (#2720)

Co-authored-by: penmetsaa <penmetsaa@google.com>

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Keep track of whether unicode strings were created from valid UTF-8 and
use this to abort operations that use these strings later.

Typically, this is done by returning an empty string when a modified
string is being produced, since an empty string is never a valid phone
number.

* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.40

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@API updates:
- Migrating from associative containers to more performant types. Eg: map to absl::btree_map.
- Synchronise the write access to map "AreaCodeMaps" using absl::Mutex locking api.
- Use more of absl:strings packages like absl::StrReplaceAll

@Build updates:
- To build (CMake) against absl packages, the minimum version of compiler is CPP11+, whereas earlier we are not mandating this.
- We are upgrading CMAKE version also to automate building the external absl packages.

The change is announced. Please report issues in case of any breakages.
https://issuetracker.google.com/issues?q=componentid:192347%20555

* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.39

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Merged as part of b/207106531

This is inspired from b/205606725 and older b/111967450 where MX stopped supporting all additional dialling codes.

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It is being a maintainace issue to keep updating JS api to be compatible with newer closure releases.
https://buganizer.corp.google.com/issues/192369473

* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.36

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* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.35

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* [maven-release-plugin] prepare release v8.12.34

* [maven-release-plugin] prepare for next development iteration