Why UTF-32 instead of UTF-16 if we have surrogate pairs?

Posted by zildjohn01 on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by zildjohn01
Published on 2009-03-09T04:31:34Z Indexed on 2010/04/25 5:23 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 237

Filed under:

unicode

|

surrogate-pairs

If I understand correctly, UTF-32 can handle every character in the universe. So can UTF-16, through the use of surrogate pairs. So is there any good reason to use UTF-32 instead of UTF-16?

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about unicode

Translating Between Unicode and Non-Unicode Character Sets in Java

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
You can use Java APIs not only to help translate characters, strings, and text streams to other languages, but also to convert Unicode character sets to non-Unicode and vice versa. >>> More
SQLite, python, unicode, and non-utf data

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I started by trying to store strings in sqlite using python, and got the message: sqlite3.ProgrammingError: You must not use 8-bit bytestrings unless you use a text_factory that can interpret 8-bit bytestrings (like text_factory = str). It is highly recommended that you instead just… >>> More
SQLite, python, unicode, and non-utf data

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I started by trying to store strings in sqlite using python, and got the message: sqlite3.ProgrammingError: You must not use 8-bit bytestrings unless you use a text_factory that can interpret 8-bit bytestrings (like text_factory = str). It is highly recommended that you instead just… >>> More
notepad sql Unicode and Non Unicode

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Hi, I have a Microsoft Notepad flate file with data and Vertical Bar as column delimiter. I get following message: cannot convert between unicode and non-unicode string data types It seems it is my nvarchar(max) that creates my problem. I changed to varchar(max); but still the same problem. How… >>> More
On Windows 7, dir or tree can't show unicode characters, even starting cmd with cmd /U

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
On Windows 7, dir or tree can't show unicode characters, even starting cmd with cmd /U So I would press Window Key + R to run something, and type in cmd /U so that the content might handle Unicode. And then using dir or tree /F, the content in Unicode won't show as Unicode. (in Window Explorer… >>> More

Related posts about surrogate-pairs

Why UTF-32 instead of UTF-16 if we have surrogate pairs?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
If I understand correctly, UTF-32 can handle every character in the universe. So can UTF-16, through the use of surrogate pairs. So is there any good reason to use UTF-32 instead of UTF-16? >>> More
How do I create JavaScript escape sequences in PHP?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm looking for a way to create valid UTF-16 JavaScript escape sequence characters (including surrogate pairs) from within PHP. I'm using the code below to get the UTF-32 code points (from a UTF-8 encoded character). This works as JavaScript escape characters (eg. '\u00E1' for 'á') - until you get… >>> More
Should UTF-16 be considered harmful?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I'm going to ask what is probably quite a controversial question: "Should one of the most popular encodings, UTF-16, be considered harmful?" Why do I ask this question? How many programmers are aware of the fact that UTF-16 is actually a variable length encoding? By this I mean that there are code… >>> More
Should UTF-16 be considered harmful?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm going to ask what is probably quite a controversial question: "Should one of the most popular encodings, UTF-16, be considered harmful?" Why do I ask this question? How many programmers are aware of the fact that UTF-16 is actually a variable length encoding? By this I mean that there are code… >>> More