ASCII, ISO 8859–1, UCS, and UTF
Introduction to Character Encoding
In this article, we will learn about popular character encoding schemes and how we can use them in real life.
The encoding by definition is a way to convert data from one format to another. When we have some text (sequence of characters) and we want to either store it inside a computer (machine) or transfer over a digital network, we need to convert it to binary representation because that’s the only language a binary-based computer can understand.
A character encoding is a way to convert text data into binary numbers. In nutshell, we can assign unique numeric values to specific characters and convert those numbers in binary language. These binary numbers later can be converted back to original characters based on their values.
Before we begin, let’s understand a few terminologies first.
Binary to Hex representation
The binary number system is very similar to the decimal number system but we have only 0 an 1 to represent a number. This YouTube video explains how we can convert a decimal number to the binary number. You can also convert a binary number to the decimal number, follow this tutorial.
