character set

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character set

1. A particular mapping between characters and byte strings, i.e. the combination of a particular character encoding (which maps between byte strings and integers) and a particular coded character set (which maps between integers and characters).

For example: ASCII (the ASCII coded character set, encoded directly as single-byte values), or UTF-8 (the Unicode coded character set, encoded with an 8-bit transformation method).

2. Occasionally: a character repertoire; or a coded character set.

(1998-12-17)