Unicode explained

Fundamentally, computers just deal with numbers. They store letters and other characters by assigning a number for each one. There are hundreds of different encoding systems for mapping characters to numbers, but Unicode promises a single mapping. Unicode enables a single software product or website to be targeted across multiple platforms, languages and countries without re-engineering. It's no wonder that industry giants like Apple, Hewlett-Packard, IBM andMicrosoft have all adopted Unicode. Containing everything you need to understand Unicode, this comprehensive reference from.

Includes index.

Table of Contents; Preface; Audience; Assumptions and Approach; Contents of This Book; Self-Assessment Test; Conventions Used in This Book; Using Code Examples; Safari® Enabled; How to Contact Us; Acknowledgments; Part I. Working with Characters; Chapter 1. Characters as Data; Introduction to Characters and Unicode; Why Unicode?; Unicode Can Be Easy; What's in a Character?; Why Do We Need to Know About Characters?; Characters as Units of Text; Characters as abstractions; Variation of appearance or different characters?; Variation in shape turned into a character difference

Characters and "abstract characters"Characters and other units of text; Characters Versus Images; Processing of Characters; Giving Identity to Characters; Definitions of characters in standards; Annotations used to emphasize differences; The representative glyphs; The number and the Unicode name as identifiers; Unicode is more explicit; Spelling of names and the U+nnnn convention; Unicode Definitions of Characters; Definitions of Characters Elsewhere; What's in a Name?; Should We Be Strict About the Meanings of Characters?; Ambiguity Among Characters; How Do I Find My Character?

Which Characters Does Each Lang…