Def: character-set

[Patrick Durusau <pdurusau@emory.edu>]

Greetings:

Next term for XMLvoc:

character-set

Current definition: A collection of elements used to represent textual 
information.

I have not heard back from TechWeb on permission to use their 
definitions but assuming that we get permission, I would suggest using 
the first paragraph of their definition, thus:

character set: A group of unique symbols used for display and printing. 
Character sets for languages that use the English alphabet generally 
contain 256 symbols, which is the number of combinations one byte can 
hold. Except for special fonts, such as Dingbats and Greek symbols, the 
symbols are the same for the first 128 characters. The letters may have 
different styling due to their typeface, but an "M," for example, is an 
"M" in the same sequential order in each character set.

Definitions from other sources follow:

1. FOLDOC:

character set

<character> 1. A particular mapping between characters and byte strings, 
i.e. the combination of a particular character encoding (which maps 
between byte strings and integers) and a particular coded character set 
(which maps between integers and characters).

For example: ASCII (the ASCII coded character set, encoded directly as 
single-byte values), or UTF-8 (the Unicode coded character set, encoded 
with an 8-bit transformation method).

2. Occasionally: a character repertoire; or a coded character set.

2. Erik Wilder: (no entry)

3. TechWeb:

A group of unique symbols used for display and printing. Character sets 
for languages that use the English alphabet generally contain 256 
symbols, which is the number of combinations one byte can hold. Except 
for special fonts, such as Dingbats and Greek symbols, the symbols are 
the same for the first 128 characters. The letters may have different 
styling due to their typeface, but an "M," for example, is an "M" in the 
same sequential order in each character set.

The second 128 characters differ depending on the font/character set 
chosen. See ASCII chart for the actual characters in the PC-8 character 
set, which was defined for the original IBM PC. See extended ASCII.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Patrick

-- 
Patrick Durusau
Director of Research and Development
Society of Biblical Literature
Patrick.Durusau@sbl-site.org
Co-Editor, ISO 13250, Topic Maps -- Reference Model