98 lines
2.4 KiB
Text
98 lines
2.4 KiB
Text
.TH UTF 6
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.SH NAME
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UTF, Unicode, ASCII, rune \- character set and format
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.SH DESCRIPTION
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The Plan 9 character set and representation are
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based on the Unicode Standard and on the ISO multibyte
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.SM UTF-8
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encoding (Universal Character
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Set Transformation Format, 8 bits wide).
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The Unicode Standard represents its characters in 16
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bits;
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.SM UTF-8
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represents such
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values in an 8-bit byte stream.
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Throughout this manual,
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.SM UTF-8
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is shortened to
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.SM UTF.
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.PP
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In Plan 9, a
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.I rune
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is a 16-bit quantity representing a Unicode character.
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Internally, programs may store characters as runes.
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However, any external manifestation of textual information,
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in files or at the interface between programs, uses a
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machine-independent, byte-stream encoding called
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.SM UTF.
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.PP
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.SM UTF
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is designed so the 7-bit
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.SM ASCII
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set (values hexadecimal 00 to 7F),
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appear only as themselves
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in the encoding.
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Runes with values above 7F appear as sequences of two or more
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bytes with values only from 80 to FF.
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.PP
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The
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.SM UTF
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encoding of the Unicode Standard is backward compatible with
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.SM ASCII\c
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:
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programs presented only with
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.SM ASCII
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work on Plan 9
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even if not written to deal with
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.SM UTF,
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as do
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programs that deal with uninterpreted byte streams.
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However, programs that perform semantic processing on
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.SM ASCII
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graphic
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characters must convert from
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.SM UTF
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to runes
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in order to work properly with non-\c
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.SM ASCII
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input.
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See
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.IR rune (2).
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.PP
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Letting numbers be binary,
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a rune x is converted to a multibyte
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.SM UTF
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sequence
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as follows:
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.PP
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01. x in [00000000.0bbbbbbb] → 0bbbbbbb
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.br
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10. x in [00000bbb.bbbbbbbb] → 110bbbbb, 10bbbbbb
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.br
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11. x in [bbbbbbbb.bbbbbbbb] → 1110bbbb, 10bbbbbb, 10bbbbbb
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.br
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.PP
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Conversion 01 provides a one-byte sequence that spans the
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.SM ASCII
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character set in a compatible way.
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Conversions 10 and 11 represent higher-valued characters
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as sequences of two or three bytes with the high bit set.
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Plan 9 does not support the 4, 5, and 6 byte sequences proposed by X-Open.
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When there are multiple ways to encode a value, for example rune 0,
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the shortest encoding is used.
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.PP
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In the inverse mapping,
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any sequence except those described above
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is incorrect and is converted to rune hexadecimal FFFD.
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.SH FILES
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.TF "/lib/unicode "
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.TP
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.B /lib/unicode
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table of characters and descriptions, suitable for
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.IR look (1).
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.SH "SEE ALSO"
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.IR ascii (1),
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.IR tcs (1),
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.IR rune (2),
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.IR keyboard (6),
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.IR "The Unicode Standard" .
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