Charset

A standardized set of characters that can be represented and used in digital systems. It defines the characters available in documents and data storage, such as letters, numbers, symbols, and punctuation. Each character in a charset is assigned a unique code or numerical value, allowing computers to store and communicate text accurately across different systems and platforms.

Here are some of the most commonly used charsets:

• ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange): A basic character set containing 128 characters, including English letters, numbers, and basic symbols. ASCII is widely used in computing and supports the English language only.
• ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1): A character set that extends ASCII to include 256 characters, supporting most Western European languages. It includes additional letters with diacritical marks, such as é, ñ, and ç.
• UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format – 8-bit): The most widely used charset on the internet, capable of encoding all characters in the Unicode standard. UTF-8 is variable-width, meaning it uses one to four bytes per character, allowing efficient storage and compatibility with ASCII.
• UTF-16 (Unicode Transformation Format – 16-bit): Another Unicode charset that uses either two or four bytes per character. UTF-16 is commonly used in systems where memory efficiency is less critical, like in Microsoft Windows.
• UTF-32 (Unicode Transformation Format – 32-bit): A fixed-width encoding where each character is represented by four bytes. It simplifies character handling by always using the same amount of space per character, though it requires more storage.
• ISO-2022: A character set mainly used for encoding Asian scripts, such as Japanese and Korean. ISO-2022 supports multiple character sets by switching between them, which is particularly useful for languages with large character repertoires.
• Big5: A character encoding used primarily for Traditional Chinese characters, mainly in Taiwan and Hong Kong. It includes thousands of characters and symbols specific to these regions.
• GB2312: A character set for Simplified Chinese characters used primarily in China. It is designed to support the characters most commonly used in mainland China.
• Windows-1252: Also known as “CP-1252,” this charset is an extension of ISO-8859-1 used by Microsoft Windows. It includes additional symbols, punctuation, and special characters, making it more versatile for Western European languages.
• KOI8-R: A character set designed for the Russian language, specifically Cyrillic script. KOI8-R is commonly used in older computing systems in Russia and other former Soviet Union countries.

Each of these charsets serves different languages, regions, and technological requirements, ensuring text compatibility and accurate representation across various platforms.