Character Set
Character Set Definition
A character set is a list of letters, numbers, symbols, and control codes. Each character in a set is matched with a unique number, called a “code point.” Your device combines this number with character encoding to change text into a format it can understand.
Character sets help your device recognize which number stands for which character. This makes sure your text looks the same when you type, save, send, or read it across apps and devices. Without them, a simple message would be a mess of unreadable symbols because your device has no list to check against when decoding text.
How Character Sets Work
Character sets are lists or tables with numbers next to each letter, symbol, punctuation mark, etc. For example, the letter A is 65 on the menu, so when you type the letter in your device, it automatically stores it as the number 65.
When your device needs to show the text again, like on a website, it reads the number on the page and checks the character set to see what each one means. It sees that 65 matches A, so it displays this on your screen.
How Are Character Sets Stored on Your Device?
To store these characters, computers use bits and bytes. A bit is the smallest unit of data, and a byte is a group of eight bits.
The character set defines a code point for each character, while the encoding system determines whether that code point is stored as one or more bytes. This makes sure your device stores, sends, and displays text correctly. It also means that, no matter what app or device you’re using, the text shows up as it should.
Character Set vs Character Encoding
People often mix up character set and character encoding, but they’re different. A character set is a list of characters and their assigned code points. Character encoding turns those numbers into bytes so your computer can store or send them correctly.
For example, Unicode is a character set that includes almost every character in modern writing systems. UTF-8 is a way to encode it, defining how to turn each Unicode number into bytes. This ensures your device stores and reads the characters properly across apps and websites.
Examples of Character Sets
- ASCII character set: One of the first standards using 7 bits to encode 128 characters, like English letters, numbers, and basic symbols.
- ANSI character set: A general term for Windows code pages (like Windows-1252), extending ASCII to support Western European languages.
- Unicode character set: A universal character set with over 140,000 characters, covering almost every language, symbol, emoji, and more.
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FAQ
A character set is a list of characters a computer can recognize. It includes letters, numbers, symbols, punctuation marks, and control codes, such as Enter or Backspace. Each character is linked to a number, so computers can read and show text properly.
It’s called ASCII, which stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It includes English letters, numbers, and common punctuation marks.
The most common character set is Unicode. It supports almost every language and thousands of symbols, emojis, and special characters. Most websites and apps use UTF-8 character encoding, which is a common way to store Unicode, so everything shows up the same across systems.
No, UTF-8 isn’t a character set. It’s character encoding that turns Unicode (the character set) into bytes so computers can store, send, and read text correctly. Unicode defines the characters, while UTF-8 turns those into data your device can work with.
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