Root at 13:33, 7 November 2025

2025-11-07T13:33:34Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:33, 7 November 2025
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			= Why do we need Unicode? =
			ASCII only covers '''128 characters''' - perfect for English, but not for other languages.

			Unicode was created to represent '''all the world’s characters''' (like ñ, 你, or 😊).

			Unicode assigns a unique number (code point) to every symbol.

			For example:
			{\| class="wikitable"
			!Character
			!Unicode code point
			!Decimal
			\|-
			\|a
			\|U+0061
			\|97
			\|-
			\|ñ
			\|U+00F1
			\|241
			\|-
			\|😊
			\|U+1F60A
			\|128522
			\|}
			UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32 are different '''ways of encoding''' these Unicode code points.

Root: Created page with "= What is a character? = A '''character''' is a symbol that humans understand - like letters (a, ñ), numbers (3), or punctuation (?). Computers, however, only understand '''binary numbers''' (0 or 1). So, to represent characters in a computer, we need a '''mapping''' between characters and numbers. ---- = What is a charset (character set)? = A '''charset''' (short for "character set") is basically a ''table'' that assigns a unique number (a '''code point''') to each..."

2025-11-07T13:20:50Z

Created page with "= What is a character? = A '''character''' is a symbol that humans understand - like letters (a, ñ), numbers (3), or punctuation (?). Computers, however, only understand '''binary numbers''' (0 or 1). So, to represent characters in a computer, we need a '''mapping''' between characters and numbers. ---- = What is a charset (character set)? = A '''charset''' (short for "character set") is basically a ''table'' that assigns a unique number (a '''code point''') to each..."

New page

= What is a character? =
A '''character''' is a symbol that humans understand - like letters (a, ñ), numbers (3), or punctuation (?).

Computers, however, only understand '''binary numbers''' (0 or 1).

So, to represent characters in a computer, we need a '''mapping''' between characters and numbers.
----

= What is a charset (character set)? =
A '''charset''' (short for "character set") is basically a ''table'' that assigns a unique number (a '''code point''') to each character.

For example, in the '''ASCII''' charset:
{| class="wikitable"
!Character
!Decimal Code
!Binary Representation
|-
|a
|97
|01100001
|-
|b
|98
|01100010
|-
|A
|65
|01000001
|}
So when you type the letter '''"a"''', the computer actually stores the number '''97''' in memory.

[https://www.ascii-code.com/ISO-8859-1 Here is the full ASCII charset table]
----

= What is encoding? =
An '''encoding''' defines '''how the numbers (code points)''' from a charset are '''stored in bytes'''.

Think of it like this:

* '''Charset''' = Dictionary (maps letters to numbers)
* '''Encoding''' = Packaging method (decides how to store those numbers in bytes)

----

== Example with "a" ==
Let’s look at '''"a"''' in several encodings:
{| class="wikitable"
!Encoding
!How "a" is stored (in bytes)
!Explanation
|-
|'''ASCII'''
|<code>01100001</code> → <code>0x61</code>
|Only one byte (97 in decimal). ASCII supports 128 characters.
|-
|'''UTF-8'''
|<code>01100001</code> → <code>0x61</code>
|Same as ASCII for English letters. UTF-8 is backward compatible with ASCII.
|-
|'''UTF-16'''
|<code>00000000 01100001</code> → <code>0x00 0x61</code>
|Uses two bytes for basic Latin letters.
|-
|'''UTF-32'''
|<code>00000000 00000000 00000000 01100001</code> → <code>0x00 0x00 0x00 0x61</code>
|Always uses 4 bytes per character.
|}
So for the same “a”:
{| class="wikitable"
!Charset
!Encoding
!Bytes Stored
|-
|ASCII
|ASCII
|0x61
|-
|Unicode
|UTF-8
|0x61
|-
|Unicode
|UTF-16
|0x00 0x61
|-
|Unicode
|UTF-32
|0x00 0x00 0x00 0x61
|}

Charsets and encoding - Revision history

Root at 13:33, 7 November 2025