Fundamentally,
computers just deal with numbers. They store letters and other characters by assigning
a number for each one. Before Unicode was invented, there were hundreds of different
encoding systems for assigning these numbers. No single encoding could contain
enough characters: for example, the European Union alone requires several different
encodings to cover all its languages. Even for a single language like English
no single encoding was adequate for all the letters, punctuation, and technical
symbols in common use.These encoding
systems also conflict with one another. That is, two encodings can use the same
number for two different characters, or use different numbers for the same character.
Any given computer (especially servers) needs to support many different encodings;
yet whenever data is passed between different encodings or platforms, that data
always runs the risk of corruption.This
paper is intended for software developers interested in support for the Unicode
standard in the Solaris™ 7 operating environment. It discusses the following
topics:
"
An overview of multilingual computing, and how Unicode and the internationalization
framework in the Solaris 7 operating environment work together to achieve this
aim
" The Unicode standard and support for it within the Solaris operating
environment
" Unicode in the Solaris 7 Operating Environment
"
How developers can add Unicode support to their applications
" Codeset
conversions
Unicode
And Multilingual Computing
It
is not a new idea that today's global economy demands global computing solutions.
Instant communications and the free flow of information across continents - and
across computer platforms - characterize the way the world has been doing business
for some time. The widespread use of the Internet and the arrival of electronic
commerce (e-commerce) together offer companies and individuals a new set of horizons
to explore and master. In the global audience, there are always people and businesses
at work - 24 hours of the day, 7 days a week. So global computing can only grow.
