Character Sets

Character sets are defined collections of characters, such as letters, digits, and symbols, used to represent text in computing systems. They assign numeric codes to each character, enabling computers to store and process textual data. Common examples include ASCII, which covers basic English characters, and Unicode, which supports a vast range of characters from global languages and symbols.

Also known as: Charsets, Character Encoding, Code Pages, Text Encoding, Char Sets

Why learn Character Sets?

Developers should learn about character sets to ensure proper text encoding, display, and interoperability in applications, especially when handling multilingual content or data exchange between systems. This is critical in web development, database management, and internationalization to prevent issues like garbled text or data corruption.

Learning Resources

• docs: MDN Web Docs: Character Encodings
• tutorial: Unicode Explained
• tutorial: W3Schools: HTML Character Sets
• course: Coursera: Character Encoding and Unicode
• video: YouTube: Character Encoding Explained