What Is Unicode

Unicode Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples

∟What Is Unicode

This section provides a quick introduction of the Unicode character set, which contains all characters used in all written languages of the world.

Unicode is a coded character set that contains all characters used in all written languages of the world. It also contains many symbols.

Unicode is fully compatible with the ISO/IEC 10646 standard.

Glyph: A visual representation of one fundamental element of written languages or symbols printed on paper or screen. For example, the letter "Z" is a glyph; and the letter "a" with "^" on top is another glyph.

Glyph is a measurement of shapes and forms of a language. Glyphs are font dependent, the same letter can be display with different glyphs, if different fonts is used.

Code Element: A digital representation of one fundamental semantic value of written languages and symbols. For example, the letter "Z", no matter how many different forms and shape it can be printed on paper or screen, it only has one semantic value - the capital letter "Z". So it can be represented by one code element. Another example is the letter "a" with "^" on top. Semantically, it may be represented by two values: the small letter "a" and the circumflex accent "^". So it can be represented by two code elements.

Character: Same as code element in Unicode context. But in other contexts, a character might be a larger measurement. For example, the letter "a" with "^" on top, is called one character in many non-Unicode contexts, but it is represented by two code elements, or two characters in Unicode context.

Code Point: A unique number assigned to a code element, usually represented in hexadecimal form with the prefix of "U+". For example, the code point of code element for the letter "Z" in Latin language is U+005A; and the code point of code element for the circumflex accent is U+0302.