Character Code

A character code is a system used to represent characters in a computer or digital device. It is a set of rules that assigns a unique numerical value to each character, symbol, and punctuation mark used in written communication. The most common character codes used today are ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) and Unicode.

ASCII is a 7-bit character code that was developed in the 1960s to standardize the representation of characters in computers. It includes 128 characters, including letters, numbers, and special characters such as punctuation marks and symbols. ASCII is widely used in the United States and other English-speaking countries.

Unicode is a more comprehensive character code that includes over 137,000 characters from all the world’s writing systems, including Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese. It is a 16-bit character code that can represent characters from virtually any language in the world. Unicode is the standard character encoding used in modern software development and is supported by all major operating systems and programming languages.

Character codes are essential for digital communication, as they allow computers to interpret and display text correctly. They are used in a wide range of applications, including word processing, email, web development, and programming. Understanding character codes is essential for software developers, as it allows them to create software that can handle text from multiple languages and character sets.

In conclusion, a character code is a system used to represent characters in a digital device. It assigns a unique numerical value to each character, symbol, and punctuation mark used in written communication. The most common character codes used today are ASCII and Unicode, which are essential for digital communication and software development.