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Character (computing)
In computing and telecommunications, a character is the encoded representation of a natural language character (including letter, numeral and punctuation), whitespace (space or tab), or a control character (controls computer hardware that consumes character-based data). A sequence of characters is called a string.
Some character encoding systems represent each character using a fixed number of bits whereas other systems use varying sizes. Various fixed-length sizes were used for now obsolete systems such as the six-bit character code, the five-bit Baudot code and even 4-bit systems (with only 16 possible values). The more modern ASCII system uses the 8-bit byte for each character. Today, the Unicode-based UTF-8 encoding uses a varying number of byte-sized code units to define a code point which combine to encode a character.
In general, a character is a symbol (such as a letter or number) that represents information, and in the context of computing is a representation of such a symbol that may be accepted by a computer. A character implies an encoding of information; often as defined by a standard such as ANSI or Unicode.
A character set identifies a repertoire of characters that are each mapped to a unique numeric value.
Glyph describes a particular visual appearance of a character. Many computer fonts consist of glyphs that are indexed by the numerical code of the corresponding character.
With the advent and widespread acceptance of Unicode and bit-agnostic coded character sets,[clarification needed] a character is increasingly being seen as a unit of information, independent of any particular visual manifestation. The ISO/IEC 10646 (Unicode) International Standard defines character, or abstract character as "a member of a set of elements used for the organization, control, or representation of data". Unicode's definition supplements this with explanatory notes that encourage the reader to differentiate between characters, graphemes, and glyphs, among other things. Such differentiation is an instance of the wider theme of the separation of presentation and content.
For example, the Hebrew letter aleph ("א") is often used by mathematicians to denote certain kinds of infinity (ℵ), but it is also used in ordinary Hebrew text. In Unicode, these two uses are considered different characters, and have two different Unicode numerical identifiers ("code points"), though they may be rendered identically. Conversely, the Chinese logogram for water ("水") may have a slightly different appearance in Japanese texts than it does in Chinese texts, and local typefaces may reflect this. But nonetheless in Unicode they are considered the same character, and share the same code point.
The Unicode standard differentiates between these abstract characters and coded characters or encoded characters that have been paired with numeric codes that facilitate their representation in computers.
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Character (computing)
In computing and telecommunications, a character is the encoded representation of a natural language character (including letter, numeral and punctuation), whitespace (space or tab), or a control character (controls computer hardware that consumes character-based data). A sequence of characters is called a string.
Some character encoding systems represent each character using a fixed number of bits whereas other systems use varying sizes. Various fixed-length sizes were used for now obsolete systems such as the six-bit character code, the five-bit Baudot code and even 4-bit systems (with only 16 possible values). The more modern ASCII system uses the 8-bit byte for each character. Today, the Unicode-based UTF-8 encoding uses a varying number of byte-sized code units to define a code point which combine to encode a character.
In general, a character is a symbol (such as a letter or number) that represents information, and in the context of computing is a representation of such a symbol that may be accepted by a computer. A character implies an encoding of information; often as defined by a standard such as ANSI or Unicode.
A character set identifies a repertoire of characters that are each mapped to a unique numeric value.
Glyph describes a particular visual appearance of a character. Many computer fonts consist of glyphs that are indexed by the numerical code of the corresponding character.
With the advent and widespread acceptance of Unicode and bit-agnostic coded character sets,[clarification needed] a character is increasingly being seen as a unit of information, independent of any particular visual manifestation. The ISO/IEC 10646 (Unicode) International Standard defines character, or abstract character as "a member of a set of elements used for the organization, control, or representation of data". Unicode's definition supplements this with explanatory notes that encourage the reader to differentiate between characters, graphemes, and glyphs, among other things. Such differentiation is an instance of the wider theme of the separation of presentation and content.
For example, the Hebrew letter aleph ("א") is often used by mathematicians to denote certain kinds of infinity (ℵ), but it is also used in ordinary Hebrew text. In Unicode, these two uses are considered different characters, and have two different Unicode numerical identifiers ("code points"), though they may be rendered identically. Conversely, the Chinese logogram for water ("水") may have a slightly different appearance in Japanese texts than it does in Chinese texts, and local typefaces may reflect this. But nonetheless in Unicode they are considered the same character, and share the same code point.
The Unicode standard differentiates between these abstract characters and coded characters or encoded characters that have been paired with numeric codes that facilitate their representation in computers.