UTF-8

UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format - 8-bit) is a variable-width character encoding standard that represents Unicode characters using one to four bytes. It is designed for backward compatibility with ASCII, as the first 128 characters (0-127) are encoded identically to ASCII using a single byte. UTF-8 is widely used for text representation in computing systems, including web pages, databases, and programming languages, due to its efficiency and universal support.

Also known as: UTF8, Unicode UTF-8, UTF-8 encoding, Unicode Transformation Format 8, UTF-8 standard

Why learn UTF-8?

Developers should learn and use UTF-8 because it is the dominant encoding for text on the internet and in modern software, ensuring proper handling of multilingual content and special characters. It is essential for web development (e.g., in HTML, XML, and JSON), data storage, and internationalization, as it prevents encoding errors like mojibake and supports emojis and diverse scripts. Using UTF-8 simplifies text processing and interoperability across different platforms and languages.

Learning Resources

• docs: UTF-8 Everywhere
• docs: MDN Web Docs: UTF-8
• article: Unicode and Character Sets
• tutorial: W3Schools: HTML Encoding
• video: YouTube: UTF-8 Explained