UTF(6) UTF(6)
NAME
UTF, Unicode, ASCII, rune - character set and format
DESCRIPTION
The Plan 9 character set and representation are based on the
Unicode Standard and on the ISO multibyte UTF-8 encoding
(Universal Character Set Transformation Format, 8 bits
wide). The Unicode Standard represents its characters in 21
bits; UTF-8 represents such values in an 8-bit byte stream.
Throughout this manual, UTF-8 is shortened to UTF.
In Plan 9, a rune is a 32-bit quantity representing a Uni-
code character. Internally, programs may store characters
as runes. However, any external manifestation of textual
information, in files or at the interface between programs,
uses a machine-independent, byte-stream encoding called UTF.
UTF is designed so the 7-bit ASCII set (values hexadecimal
00 to 7F), appear only as themselves in the encoding. Runes
with values above 7F appear as sequences of two or more
bytes with values only from 80 to FF.
The UTF encoding of the Unicode Standard is backward compat-
ible with ASCII: programs presented only with ASCII work on
Plan 9 even if not written to deal with UTF, as do programs
that deal with uninterpreted byte streams. However, pro-
grams that perform semantic processing on ASCII graphic
characters must convert from UTF to runes in order to work
properly with non-ASCII input. See rune(2).
Letting numbers be binary, a rune x is converted to a multi-
byte UTF sequence as follows:
001. x in [00000000.00000000.0bbbbbbb] → 0bbbbbbb
010. x in [00000000.00000bbb.bbbbbbbb] → 110bbbbb,
10bbbbbb
011. x in [00000000.bbbbbbbb.bbbbbbbb] → 1110bbbb,
10bbbbbb, 10bbbbbb
100. x in [000bbbbb.bbbbbbbb.bbbbbbbb] → 11110bbb,
10bbbbbb, 10bbbbbb, 10bbbbbb
Conversion 001 provides a one-byte sequence that spans the
ASCII character set in a compatible way. Conversions 010,
011 and 100 represent higher-valued characters as sequences
of two, three or four bytes with the high bit set. Plan 9
does not support the 5 and 6 byte sequences proposed by X-
Open. When there are multiple ways to encode a value, for
example rune 0, the shortest encoding is used.
In the inverse mapping, any sequence except those described
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UTF(6) UTF(6)
above is incorrect and is converted to rune hexadecimal
FFFD.
FILES
/lib/unicode table of characters and descriptions, suit-
able for look(1).
SEE ALSO
ascii(1), tcs(1), rune(2), keyboard(6), The Unicode
Standard.
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