Unicode demystified

As the software marketplace becomes more global in scope, programmers are recognizing the importance of the Unicode standard for engineering robust software that works across multiple regions, countries, languages, alphabets, and scripts. Unicode Demystified offers an in-depth introduction to the encoding standard and provides the tools and techniques necessary to create today's globally interoperable software systems.

An ideal complement to specifics found in The Unicode Standard, this practical guidebook brings the big picture of Unicode into practical focus for the day-to-day programmer and the internationalization specialist alike. After opening with a structural overview of the standard along with its heritage and motivations, the book then shifts its focus to the various writing systems representable using Unicode, along with the challenges associated with each. From there, the book examines Unicode in action and presents strategies for implementing various aspects of the standard.

Topics covered include:

• The basics of Unicode--what it is and what it isn't
• The history and development of character encoding
• The architecture and salient features of Unicode, including character properties, normalization forms, and storage and serialization formats
• The character repertoire: scripts of Europe, The Middle East, India, Asia and more, plus numbers, punctuation, symbols, and special characters
• Implementation techniques: conversions, searching and sorting, rendering and editing
• Using Unicode with the Internet, programming languages, and operating systems

With this book as a guide, programmers have the tools necessary to understand, create, and deploy dynamic software systems across today's increasingly global marketplace.

Contents

I. UNICODE IN ESSENCE: AN ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW OF THE UNICODE STANDARD

• 1. Language, Computers, and Unicode
• 2. Brief History of Character Encoding
• 3. Architecture: Not Just a Pile of Code Charts
• 4. Combining Character Sequences and Unicode Normalization
• 5. Character Properties and the Unicode Character Database
• 6. Unicode Storage and Serialization Formats

II. UNICODE IN DEPTH: A GUIDED TOUR OF THE CHARACTER REPERTOIRE

• 7. Scripts of Europe
• 9. Scripts of India and Southeast Asia
• 10. Scripts of East Asia
• 11. Scripts from Other Parts of the World
• 12. Numbers, Punctuation, Symbols, and Specials

III. UNICODE IN ACTION: IMPLEMENTING AND USING THE UNICODE STANDARD

• 13. Techniques and Data Structures for Handling Unicode Text
• 14. Conversions and Transformations
• 15. Searching and Sorting
• 16. Rendering and Editing
• 17. Unicode and Other Technologies