Difference between UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32 Character ...

The main difference between UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32 character encoding is how many bytes it requires to represent a character in memory. UTF-8 uses a ... TopicsandCategories corejava spring hibernate collections multithreading designpatterns interviewquestions coding datastructure OOP java8 books AboutMe JavaCertifications JDBC jsp-servlet JSON SQL Linux Courses onlineresources jvm-internals REST Eclipse jQuery JavaIO JavaXML Disclosure:Thisarticlemaycontainaffiliatelinks.Whenyoupurchase,wemayearnasmallcommission. DifferencebetweenUTF-8,UTF-16andUTF-32CharacterEncoding?Example ThemaindifferencebetweenUTF-8,UTF-16,andUTF-32characterencodingishowmanybytesitrequirestorepresentacharacterinmemory.UTF-8usesaminimumofonebyte,whileUTF-16usesaminimumof2bytes.BTW,ifthecharacter'scodepointisgreaterthan127,themaximumvalueofbytethenUTF-8maytake2,3o4bytesbutUTF-16willonlytakeeithertwoorfourbytes.Ontheotherhand,UTF-32isafixed-widthencodingschemeandalwaysuses4bytestoencodeaUnicodecodepoint.Now,let'sstartwithwhatischaracterencodingandwhyit'simportant?Well,characterencodingisanimportantconceptintheprocessofconvertingbytestreamsintocharacters,whichcanbedisplayed. Therearetwothings,whichareimportanttoconvertbytestocharacters,acharactersetandanencoding.Sincetherearesomanycharactersandsymbolsintheworld,acharactersetisrequiredtosupportallthosecharacters.Acharactersetisnothingbutlistofcharacters,whereeachsymbolorcharacterismappedtoanumericvalue,alsoknownascodepoints. OntheotherhandUTF-16,UTF-32andUTF-8areencodingschemes,whichdescribehowthesevalues(codepoints)aremappedtobytes(usingdifferentbitvaluesasabasis;e.g.16-bitforUTF-16,32bitsforUTF-32and8-bitforUTF-8).UTFstandsforUnicodeTransformation,whichdefinesanalgorithmtomapeveryUnicodecodepointtoauniquebytesequence.  Forexample,forcharacterA,whichisLatinCapitalA,UnicodecodepointisU+0041,UTF-8encodedbytesare41,UTF-16encodingis0041,andJavacharliteralis'\u0041'.Inshort,youjustneedacharacterencodingschemetointerpretastreamofbytes,intheabsenceofcharacterencoding,youcannotshowthemcorrectly.Javaprogramminglanguagehasextensivesupportfordifferentcharsetandcharacterencoding,bydefaultitusesUTF-8. DifferencebetweenUTF-32,UTF-16andUTF-8encoding AsIsaidearlier,UTF-8,UTF-16,andUTF-32arejustcoupleofwaystostoreUnicodecodepointsi.e.thoseU+magicnumbersusing8,16and32bitsinthecomputer'smemory.OnceUnicodecharacterisconvertedintobytes,itcanbeeasilypersistedinthedisk,transferredovernetworkandrecreatedatotherend. ThefundamentaldifferencebetweenUTF-32andUTF-8,UTF-16isthatformerisfixedwidthencodingscheme,whilelaterduoisvariablelengthencoding.BTW,despite,bothUTF-8andUTF-16usesUnicodecharactersandvariablewidthencoding,therearesomedifferencebetweenthemaswell. 1.UTF-8usesonebyteattheminimuminencodingthecharacterswhileUTF-16usesminimumtwobytes. InUTF-8,everycodepointfrom0-127isstoredinasinglebytes.Onlycodepoints128andabovearestoredusing2,3orinfact,upto4bytes.Inshort,UTF-8isvariablelengthencodingandtakes1to4bytes,dependinguponcodepoint.UTF-16isalsovariablelengthcharacterencodingbuteithertakes2or4bytes.OntheotherhandUTF-32isfixed4bytes. 2.UTF-8iscompatiblewithASCIIwhileUTF-16isincompatiblewithASCII UTF-8hasanadvantagewhereASCIIaremostusedcharacters,inthatcasemostcharactersonlyneedonebyte.UTF-8filecontainingonlyASCIIcharactershasthesameencodingasanASCIIfile,whichmeansEnglishtextlooksexactlythesameinUTF-8asitdidinASCII.GivendominanceofASCIIinpastthiswasthemainreasonofinitialacceptanceofUnicodeandUTF-8. Hereisanexample,whichshowshowdifferentcharactersaremappedtobytesunderdifferentcharacterencodingschemee.g.UTF-16,UTF-8andUTF-32.Youcanseehowdifferentschemetakesdifferentnumberofbytestorepresentsamecharacter. Summary 1)UTF16isnotfixedwidth.Ituses2or4bytes.TheonlyUTF32isfixed-widthandunfortunately,nooneusesit. Also,worthknowingisthatJavaStringsarerepresentedusingUTF-16bitcharacters,earliertheyuseUSC2,whichisfixedwidth.  2)YoumightthinkthatbecauseUTF-8takesfewerbytesformanycharactersitwouldtakelessmemorythanUTF-16,wellthatreallydependsonwhatlanguagethestringisin.Fornon-Europeanlanguages,UTF-8requiresmorememorythanUTF-16. 3)ASCIIisstrictlyfasterthanmulti-byteencodingschemebecauselessdatatoprocess=faster. That'sallaboutUnicode,UTF-8,UTF-32,andUTF-16characterencoding.Aswehavelearned,Unicodeisacharactersetofvarioussymbols,whileUTF-8,UTF-16,andUTF-32aredifferentwaystorepresenttheminbyteformat.BothUTF-8andUTF-16arevariable-lengthencoding,wherethenumberofbytesuseddependsuponUnicodecodepoints. Ontheotherhand,UTF-32isfixed-widthencoding,whereeachcodepointtakes4bytes.Unicodecontainscodepointsforalmostallrepresentablegraphicsymbolsintheworldanditsupportsallmajorlanguagese.g.English,Japanese,Mandarin,orDevanagari. Alwaysremember,UTF-32isfixed-widthencoding,alwaystakes32bits,butUTF-8andUTF-16arevariable-lengthencodingswhereUTF-8cantake1to4byteswhileUTF-16willtakeeither2or4bytes. By javinpaul EmailThis BlogThis! SharetoTwitter SharetoFacebook Labels: bestofjavarevisited , corejava , programming 11comments : KunalKrishna85 said... "BTW,ifcharacter'scodepointisgreaterthan127,"whatisCharacter'sCODEPOINT?plzexplain. February17,2015at9:21PM Anonymous said... Yousaid:"Javaprogramminglanguagehasextensivesupportfordifferentcharsetandcharacterencoding,bydefaultituseUTF-8."Thenyousaid:"Also,worthknowingisthatJavaStringsarerepresentedusingUTF-16bitcharacters"Couldyouclearthisout. February18,2015at11:29AM gm said... Onequestion.YoumentionthedefaultencodinginJavaisUTF-8butatleastCharacterandStringhavethedefaultUTF-16(http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/lang/Character.html).Isthereadifferentencodingyouwererefferingto?Tx,niceblog February19,2015at5:42AM Unknown said... @Kunal"Codepointsarethenumbersthatareusedincodedcharactersetwherecodedcharactersetrepresentcollectionofcharactersandeachcharacterwillassignauniquenumber.Thiscodedcharactersetdefinerangeofvalidcodepoints.ValidcodepointsforUnicodeareU+0000toU+10FFFF."http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2012/01/java-string-codepoint-get-unicode.html February19,2015at8:42AM Anonymous said... HelloOnepointtonoteisthat,UTF-8cangountil6bytes,ihopeiamnotwronghere.Thanks. February19,2015at11:58AM javinpaul said... @gm,Yes,JavaStringusesUTF-16butwhenyouconvertBytearraytocharacters,Javausesplatform'sdefaultcharacterencoding.It'sdifferentatdifferentplacese.g.inEclipseitcouldbedifferentthanyourLinuxhost. February21,2015at11:45PM Anonymous said... Hellothere?WhatisdifferencebetweenUTF-16,UTF-16LEandUTF-16BE?Aretheysame? February23,2015at5:13AM Anonymous said... @Anonymous,Theyarenotsame.UTF-16LEstorebytesinlittleendianorder,whileUTF-16BEstoresbytesinbigendianorderindisk.SinceUTF-16usesminimum2bytestorepresentacharacter,howtheystorethosetwobytesindiskwillaffectthevalueofcharacter.Inbigendian,mostsignificantbyteisstoredathigherlocation. September16,2015at12:34AM vijaypratap said... (£)ThissymbolwearetakingfromDatabase,whiledisplayingthisvaluesin.jsppageitisfine,butwhilegettingthevalueintoAPIsitiscomingas(A^£).Weareusingchaset=utf-8.Couldyoupleasetellmewhyitishappeningandwhatissolutionforit. October24,2018at8:40PM Unknown said... Useutf16 August21,2019at4:44PM Anonymous said... Acharactersetisnothingbutlistofcharacters,whereeachsymbolorcharacterismappedtoanumericvalue,alsoknownascodepoints. December11,2020at12:21PM PostaComment NewerPost OlderPost Home Subscribeto: PostComments ( Atom ) SearchThisBlog SubscribeforDiscountsandUpdates Follow InterviewQuestions corejavainterviewquestion (178) interviewquestions (105) datastructureandalgorithm (86) CodingInterviewQuestion (79) designpatterns (38) objectorientedprogramming (37) SQLInterviewQuestions (35) springinterviewquestions (32) threadinterviewquestions (30) collectionsinterviewquestions (26) databaseinterviewquestions (16) servletinterviewquestions (15) Programminginterviewquestion (6) hibernateinterviewquestions (6) BestofJavarevisited HowSpringMVCworksinternally? HowtodesignavendingmachineinJava? HowHashMapworksinJava? 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