Unicode

Unicode is a character encoding standard that aims to allow every character in every language to be represented in a consistent and standardized way. It assigns a unique number, called code point, to each character. Unicode includes characters from all of the world's writing systems, including those that were created over thousands of years ago.

History

Unicode was first introduced in 1991 by the Unicode Consortium as an effort to unify character encoding standards. The first version of Unicode included about 28,000 characters. Since then, the number of characters has grown to over 143,000 in version 13.0 (March 2020).

Encoding

Unicode provides a way to encode characters by assigning a unique number to each one. There are several encoding schemes available for Unicode, the most common of which are UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32.

UTF-8

UTF-8 is a variable-length encoding that uses one to four bytes to encode each character. ASCII characters (code points 0-127) are encoded using a single byte, while other characters are encoded using two to four bytes. UTF-8 is the most commonly used encoding scheme for the web.

UTF-16

UTF-16 is a variable-length encoding that uses two or four bytes to encode each character. It is used mainly in Windows operating systems and some older web browsers.

UTF-32

UTF-32 is a fixed-length encoding that uses four bytes to encode each character. It is not commonly used in practice.

Benefits

Using Unicode has several benefits for programmers, such as:

• Allowing for consistent and standardized handling of text in different languages.
• Making it easier to write software that works with multilingual text.
• Enabling the use of emoji and other graphical symbols in applications.

Conclusion

Unicode is an essential standard for handling text in modern software development. Understanding how it works and how to encode and decode text using Unicode is an important skill for programmers.

# Unicode

Unicode is a character encoding standard that aims to allow every character in every language to be represented in a consistent and standardized way. It assigns a unique number, called code point, to each character. Unicode includes characters from all of the world's writing systems, including those that were created over thousands of years ago.

## History

Unicode was first introduced in 1991 by the Unicode Consortium as an effort to unify character encoding standards. The first version of Unicode included about 28,000 characters. Since then, the number of characters has grown to over 143,000 in version 13.0 (March 2020).

## Encoding

Unicode provides a way to encode characters by assigning a unique number to each one. There are several encoding schemes available for Unicode, the most common of which are UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32.

### UTF-8

UTF-8 is a variable-length encoding that uses one to four bytes to encode each character. ASCII characters (code points 0-127) are encoded using a single byte, while other characters are encoded using two to four bytes. UTF-8 is the most commonly used encoding scheme for the web.

### UTF-16

UTF-16 is a variable-length encoding that uses two or four bytes to encode each character. It is used mainly in Windows operating systems and some older web browsers.

### UTF-32

UTF-32 is a fixed-length encoding that uses four bytes to encode each character. It is not commonly used in practice.

## Benefits

Using Unicode has several benefits for programmers, such as:

- Allowing for consistent and standardized handling of text in different languages.
- Making it easier to write software that works with multilingual text.
- Enabling the use of emoji and other graphical symbols in applications.

## Conclusion

Unicode is an essential standard for handling text in modern software development. Understanding how it works and how to encode and decode text using Unicode is an important skill for programmers.