Mark, Markus did a good job of describing that advantages of each. The problem that I see is that there are applications that are not enabled to do BOM processing and convert from little-endian to big-endian and the other way around.
Are there any browsers that support Unicode but will not do endian flips for UTF-16? I usually use UTF-8 to send data between systems just to make sure. Carl > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of Mark Davis > Sent: Monday, February 23, 2004 7:17 AM > To: steve; John Cowan > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: unicode format > > > It is important to distinguish two cases: (a) which UTF one > should emit in web > pages , (b) which UTF one should use for internal processing. > There is a tech > note about this at http://www.unicode.org/notes/tn12/ > > Mark > __________________________________ > http://www.macchiato.com > â ààààààààààààààààààààà â > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "John Cowan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "steve" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Mon, 2004 Feb 23 04:50 > Subject: Re: unicode format > > > > steve scripsit: > > > > > Could someone please clarify the difference between UTF8 and UFT16 > > > please? If it is possible to encode everything in UTF8 and it is more > > > efficient what is the need for UTF16? > > > > The short version is that in UTF-8, characters can occupy 1, 2, 3, or > > (very rarely) 4 bytes; in UTF-16, characters can occupy 2 or (very > > rarely) 4 bytes. Either encoding can be used with any textual content. > > > > UTF-8 is typically more compact than UTF-16 for English and other > > Latin-alphabet languages, slightly more compact for Greek, Cyrillic, > > Armenian, Hebrew, and Arabic alphabets, and almost 50% less compact > > for everything else. > > > > -- > > John Cowan [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ccil.org/~cowan > > O beautiful for patriot's dream that sees beyond the years > > Thine alabaster cities gleam undimmed by human tears! > > America! America! God mend thine every flaw, > > Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law! > > -- one of the verses not usually taught in U.S. schools > > > > > > > >
