Character Encoding
Character encoding is a system that maps characters (letters, numbers, symbols) to numeric codes (bytes) for digital storage and transmission, enabling computers to represent and process text from various languages and scripts. It defines how text is converted into binary data and back, ensuring consistent interpretation across different systems and applications. Common examples include ASCII, UTF-8, and ISO-8859, which handle different character sets and complexities.
Developers should learn character encoding to prevent text corruption, encoding errors, and security vulnerabilities (e.g., injection attacks) in applications that handle internationalization, data exchange, or user input. It is essential when working with multilingual websites, databases, APIs, or file processing to ensure data integrity and compatibility across platforms. Understanding encoding helps debug issues like mojibake (garbled text) and optimize storage and performance in text-heavy systems.