The Unicode Standard: Version 2.0 (Unicode Consortium) [Paperback]

The Unicode Consortium (Author), Joan Aliprand (Author), Joseph Becker (Author), Mark Davis (Author), Asmus Freytag (Author), Michael Ksar (Author), Rick McGowan (Author), Michel Suignard (Author), Ken Whistler (Author), Glenn Adams (Author)

Book Description

Series: Unicode Consortium | Publication Date: August 1996

Version 3.0 now available! Modern software must function all around the world. This demands a single character set that works everywhere. The Unicode Standard is the proven answer, implemented in software for the world market: Windows NT and Windows 95, AIX, NetWare 4.0, QuickDraw GX, and Java. The list grows! Version 2.0 of the Unicode Standard introduces additional scripts, and contains over five years' worth of cumulated experience from unrivaled experts in multilingual applications. Unicode scripts include alphabets used in the Western world, Africa, the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and other parts of Asia, as well as the unified Han set of East Asian ideographs and the complete set of modern Korean Hangul. The standard is also consistent with International Standard ISO/IEC 10646. The Unicode Standard, Version 2.0 is the official source of information on the new version of the standard. Providing more than just code charts and character names, this authoritative guide covers every aspect of implementation, including structure, character properties, rules for conformance, and implementation guidelines.There are also standard algorithms for formatting Arabic, Devanagari, and Tamil scripts, for display of bidirectional text (e. g., mixed English and Arabic), and for the creation of Korean Hangul syllables. The accompanying CD-ROM provides a complete character properties database and tables that map Unicode characters to international, national, and vendor character sets. The Unicode Standard, Version 2.0 is an essential reference for computer programmers and software developers working on global software and multilingual applications. 0201483459B04062001

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The Unicode Consortium is a non-profit organization founded to develop, extend, and promote the use of the Unicode Standard. The membership of the Consortium represents a broad spectrum of corporations and organizations in the computer and information processing industry. The Unicode Consortium actively cooperates with many of the leading standards development organizations, including ISO/IEC JTC1, W3C, IETF, and ECMA. 0201483459AB07232003

Product Details

• Paperback: 944 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub (Sd); 2nd edition (August 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0201483459
• ISBN-13: 978-0201483451
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,945,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unicode as successor to ASCII, February 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unicode Standard: Version 2.0 (Unicode Consortium) (Paperback)

If you are writing software which must be internationalized, then there is no question that you need this book and you need Unicode. What ASCII is for the United States, Unicode is for the rest of the world. In this world (particularly this software world) of pontificating know-it-alls-who-don't, it is getting rarer and rarer to find complete compendiums of an entire domain of knowledge which can serve as the seminal reference for all successive work. This book is one of those rare seminal references which has in it the greatest quantity and greatest quality of wisdom and knowledge on the alphabets of the world for use in computer software.

From the perspective of domestic software developers within the United States, Unicode is essentially 7-bit ASCII in a 16-bit unsigned integer. In the immensely popular C and C++ languages Unicode strings behave like ASCII strings:
. Unicode 0/null terminates C/C++ strings, just like ASCII 0/null.
. Unicode has a type in ANSI Standard C and ISO Standard C++ (and ARM-defined C++): wchar_t. For C/C++ programmers, char=ASCII wchar_t=Unicode.
. Unicode has a plethora of standard string manipulation functions already standardized in ANSI Standard C and ISO Standard C++, usually substitute the str with wcs (e.g., strcpy=wcscpy, strcmp=wcscmp, strcat=wcscat) and substitute the char parameters with wchar_t parameters. Abracadabra, your software is well on its way to being able to have strings in any foreign language as well as English.
. Unicode characters are all the same size (16-bit), just like ASCII (8-bit).
. Unicode's first 127 values are essentially 7-bit ASCII values.
. Unicode completely eliminates all that darned "code page" baloney.
. Unicode completely solves all that "How do we stuff that odd foreign character into the printable characters on screen/paper?" problem.
. Unicode is an ISO standard which came from a defacto United States computer industry standard. It is not ivory tower; it is in common use.
. Unicode was developed with you the software engineer and programmer in mind from day one. Unicode was developed with C++'s/C's wchar_t in mind from day one. It all fits together with Unicode.
. Unicode is used as a supported string technology (or the only string technology) in: Java, C++, C, Windows NT, Novell Netware, Solaris, and numerous other computing environments.
. Unicode supports all alphabets in use in the world today, plus alphabet-less languages such as Chinese, as well as languages whose alphabets are still being formalized.
. Because Unicode characters are all the same size, Unicode characters are random-access in that one can access any character (pick a card, any card) and know by looking at its value what that character is. Other multi-byte character sets must be parsed sequentially from the beginning of the string to assure that one has detected what mode some escape sequence has shifted that portion of the string into.
. Unicode seeks to solve every defect of previous multi-byte character sets. Unicode is the fittest to survive. All other multi-byte character sets should be (and will be) abandoned.
. Unicode = exportable software world wide in the global economy. ASCII = limiting your market to the English-speaking minority of the world.
. Unicode = supporting the information systems of all of the foreign branch offices of your company. ASCII = crippling your information system so that it supports nothing more than the English-only offices.
. ASCII = string equivalent of the Year 2000 Problem. Unicode = the fix to language-crippled software.

(And we won't even discuss the obvious and total superiority of Unicode over EBCDIC!)

In short Unicode is good for the software industry. This book is the official reference for Unicode from the inventor of Unicode: The Unicode Consortium.

The views contained within this feedback is in no way associated with my employer nor any other organization.