encodingsdepending
Encodingsdepending is a term used in discussions of text processing to describe how the choice and interpretation of character encodings depend on context. It draws attention to the fact that encodings are not stored with data in a universal, self-contained way, but are shaped by surrounding conventions and software expectations.
Several factors influence encoding decisions. The communication channel or protocol (for example, HTTP with a charset
Consequences include misinterpretation of text (mojibake), data corruption when encoding is assumed but not verified, and
Best practices to address encodingsdepending include documenting and propagating encoding metadata, preferring Unicode encodings (UTF-8) where
See also: character encoding, Unicode, UTF-8, MIME, Byte Order Mark, mojibake.