karakterkészletet

Karakterkészlet is a Hungarian term that translates to "character set" in English. It refers to a collection of characters used in writing systems, such as letters, numbers, punctuation marks, and symbols. In computing, a character set is a mapping between a set of characters and numerical values, called code points. This mapping allows computers to store, process, and display text.

Historically, various character sets were developed, each supporting a different range of characters and languages. Examples include ASCII, which was an early standard for English characters, and EBCDIC, used primarily on IBM mainframe systems. As computing became more globalized, the need for character sets that could accommodate a wider variety of languages and symbols became apparent.

Unicode is the modern standard for character encoding, designed to represent virtually all characters from all writing systems, as well as symbols and emojis. It assigns a unique number, known as a code point, to each character. Different encoding schemes, such as UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32, are used to represent these Unicode code points in binary form. UTF-8 is the most common encoding on the internet.

The concept of a karakterkészlet is fundamental to computer science and digital communication, ensuring that text can be accurately represented and exchanged across different platforms and devices, regardless of the language or symbols used. Understanding character sets is crucial for developers working with text data, internationalization, and localization.