szövegkódolások

Szövegkódolások refers to the methods used to represent text characters in a digital format. Computers store all information, including text, as sequences of numbers. Text encoding establishes a consistent mapping between characters and these numerical representations, ensuring that text can be accurately stored, transmitted, and displayed across different systems.

Early text encodings were often specific to certain languages or operating systems. For example, ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) was a foundational 7-bit encoding that represented English letters, numbers, and common punctuation marks. However, ASCII's limited character set made it unsuitable for languages with accents or non-Latin alphabets.

To address this, various extended ASCII encodings and other character sets emerged, such as ISO 8859, which provided extensions for different European languages. These encodings often used 8 bits (a byte) per character, allowing for more symbols. A significant challenge with these multiple encodings was compatibility; text encoded with one system might appear as gibberish when interpreted by another.

The development of Unicode aimed to create a universal standard that could represent virtually all characters from all writing systems worldwide. Unicode assigns a unique number, called a code point, to each character. Different Unicode encoding forms, such as UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32, specify how these code points are translated into sequences of bytes for storage and transmission. UTF-8 has become particularly prevalent due to its backward compatibility with ASCII and its efficient use of bytes for commonly encountered characters. Understanding text encoding is crucial for internationalization and ensuring accurate digital communication.