A Complete Guide to the Encoding and Unicode for Developers

Character encoding is like a set of rules that computers follow to understand and represent text. Just as different languages have their own alphabets, computers use character encoding to translate letters, numbers, and symbols into a format they can understand. It’s crucial for computers to use the same set of rules, or encoding, to correctly display and process text in various languages. Without character encoding, computers wouldn’t be able to interpret and show the wide range of characters used in different languages, making communication and data processing much more challenging.

Unicode is a universal encoding standard that can represent characters from all the major scripts used in the world, including Latin, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, and many more. It assigns a unique code point to every character, and it supports over 140,000 characters.

In the digital landscape, character encodings play a crucial role in representing text in a computer system. As a developer, understanding the different types of character encodings and knowing when to use each is essential for building robust and globally compatible applications. In this guide, we’ll explore some prominent character encodings, along with scenarios where their use is most appropriate.

Encoding is the process of converting data or information from one format to another so that it can be transmitted, stored, or processed efficiently. In computing, encoding is primarily used to convert text, images, and other types of digital content into a form that can be understood by computer systems. This involves assigning numerical values or codes to characters, symbols, and other data elements. Encoding is essential for ensuring that data is transmitted and stored accurately, and that it can be interpreted and used by different computer systems and applications. There are many different encoding standards used in computing, including Unicode, ASCII, UTF-8, and ISO-8859, among others. The choice of encoding standard depends on the type of data being encoded, the purpose of encoding, and the software and hardware being used.

Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that allows computers to represent and manipulate text in different languages and scripts from around the world. It assigns a unique numerical value, known as a code point, to every character, symbol, and punctuation mark used in written communication. This ensures that characters are displayed and processed correctly, regardless of the platform, software, or font used. The Unicode standard has revolutionized global communication by facilitating the exchange of text in multiple languages and enabling the development of multilingual software applications. It is widely used in operating systems, web browsers, mobile devices, and many other digital platforms.

All the character encoding types, and when to use:-

1. UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format — 8-bit)

Example: The UTF-8 representation of ‘€’ (Euro sign) is three bytes: 0xE2 0x82 0xAC.

Explanation: UTF-8 is a variable-width character encoding that can represent characters from the Unicode standard. It’s widely used and backward-compatible with ASCII, It uses one to four bytes to encode characters, depending on their Unicode code point.

When to Use:

• Default choice for web development, file storage, and data exchange where multilingual support is essential.
• Suitable for websites, databases, and applications that need to handle text in various languages.

Python example: Create a text file called “segismundo.txt”, that has 3 different languages like:

محمد رضا

Mohamed Reda

Sueña el rico en su riquez

in this python code

path = "segismundo.txt"
with open(path, encoding="utf-8") as f:
  [print(x) for x in f]

This will print the words as it is, if you deleted encoding=”utf-8", it will read the characters wrongly like:

محمد رضا

Mohamed Reda

Sueña el rico en su riquez

The encoding parameter specifies the character encoding of the file being opened. Character encoding determines how characters are represented in binary format. Different character encodings use different binary representations for the same characters.

If you omit the encoding parameter when opening a file in Python, the default encoding for your system will be used. However, this default encoding may not be the same as the encoding used to write the file. If the file was written in a different encoding, the characters may not be read correctly.

In the case of the code you provided, specifying encoding="utf-8" ensures that the file is read using the UTF-8 encoding. UTF-8 is a widely used character encoding that can represent all possible characters in Unicode. If the file was written in UTF-8 encoding, specifying encoding="utf-8" will ensure that the characters are read correctly.

If you omit encoding="utf-8", Python will use the default encoding for your system, which may not be UTF-8. If the file was written in UTF-8 encoding, the characters may not be read correctly, resulting in incorrect output.

1. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange):

Example: The ASCII code for the letter ‘A’ is 65.

Explanation: ASCII is the oldest and simplest encoding standard, it’s a basic encoding that uses 7 bits to represent characters, only includes characters from the English language.

When to Use:

• Use ASCII when dealing with basic English characters, numbers, and common symbols.
• Ideal for simple text processing tasks where only the English alphabet and a limited set of symbols are involved.

3. ISO-8859–1 (Latin-1)

Example: The ISO-8859–1 code for ‘é’ is 0xE9.

Explanation: ISO-8859–1 (an extension of ASCII)is a single-byte encoding commonly used for Western European languages. It’s not as versatile as UTF-8 for representing characters from various languages (still limited in its support for non-Latin scripts).

When to Use:

• Use ISO-8859–1 when working with Western European languages and characters.
• Appropriate for European-focused applications where characters like accented letters are common.

In summary, while ASCII and ISO-8859 are limited to a smaller set of characters and scripts, Unicode and UTF-8 are more versatile and can support a wider range of languages and scripts. UTF-8 is an extension of Unicode that allows for more efficient encoding of text data.

4. UTF-16 (Unicode Transformation Format — 16-bit)

Example: The UTF-16 representation of ‘😊’ (smiling face emoji) is 0xD83D 0xDE0A.

Explanation: UTF-16 uses 16 bits (two bytes) for most characters, but some characters require four bytes. It can represent a broader range of characters than ASCII or UTF-8.

When to Use:

• Use UTF-16 when working with Asian languages or other scripts that require a larger character space.
• Appropriate for software applications targeting markets with complex character sets, such as Chinese, Japanese, or Korean.

5. UTF-32 (Unicode Transformation Format — 32-bit)

Example: The UTF-32 representation of ‘©’ (copyright symbol) is 0x000000A9.

Explanation: UTF-32 uses a fixed 32 bits for each character, making it straightforward but less space-efficient compared to UTF-8 and UTF-16.

When to Use:

• When a fixed-width encoding is preferred and memory/storage efficiency is not a primary concern.
• Suitable for systems that require consistent character sizes for processing simplicity.

6. Windows-1252

Example: The Windows-1252 code for ‘™’ (trademark symbol) is 0x99.

Explanation: Similar to ISO-8859–1, Windows-1252 is an extension with additional characters, commonly used on Windows systems.

When to Use:

• Similar to ISO-8859–1 but with additional characters used in Windows environments.
• Suitable for Windows-based applications with specific character requirements.

7. UTF-7

Example: The UTF-7 representation of ‘hello’ is +JAA-

Explanation: UTF-7 is a 7-bit encoding designed for use in environments that may not reliably transmit 8-bit data, such as email.

When to Use:

• Rarely used in modern applications; UTF-8 is preferred for compatibility and efficiency.
• Consider UTF-7 for legacy systems or environments with strict 7-bit data transmission requirements.

8. EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code)

Example: The EBCDIC code for ‘A’ is 0xC1.

Explanation: EBCDIC is mainly used on IBM mainframes and is an 8-bit encoding that differs from ASCII.

When to Use:

• Mainly for legacy systems running on IBM mainframes.
• Appropriate for interfacing with older systems that use EBCDIC encoding.

In conclusion, the choice of character encoding depends on factors such as language requirements, system compatibility, and efficiency. While UTF-8 is the go-to encoding for modern applications, understanding the nuances of other encodings is essential for addressing specific needs and ensuring seamless communication in diverse linguistic environments.