Variable-width encoding: Difference between revisions

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Revision as of 13:38, 2 August 2021

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A '''variable-width encoding''' is a type of [[character encoding]] scheme in which codes of differing lengths are used to encode a [[character set]] (a repertoire of symbols) for representation, usually in a [[computer]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Crispin|first=M.|date=April 2005|title=UTF-9 and UTF-18 Efficient Transformation Formats of Unicode|doi=10.17487/rfc4042|doi-access=free}}</ref> (although the{{efn|The concept actually long precedes the advent of the electronic computer, however, as seen with [[Morse code]], ubiquitous in the telegraph age, being a variable-width encoding).}} Most common variable-width encodings are '''multibyte encodings''', which use varying numbers of [[byte]]s ([[octet (computing)|octets]]) to encode different characters.

(Some authors, notably in Microsoft documentation, use the term ''multibyte character set,'' which is a [[misnomer]], because representation size is an attribute of the encoding, not of the character set.)