The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0, 5/e

Description

"Hard copy versions of the Unicode Standard have been among the most crucial and most heavily used reference books in my personal library for years."

--Donald E. Knuth, The Art of Computer Programming

"For more than a decade, Unicode has been a foundation for many Microsoft products and technologies; Unicode Standard Version 5.0 will help us deliver important new benefits to users."

--Bill Gates, chairman, Microsoft Corporation

"The path W3C follows to making text on the Web truly global is Unicode."

--Sir Tim Berners-Lee, kbe, Web inventor and director of the World Wide Consortium (W3C)

"Without Unicode, Java wouldn't be Java, and the Internet would have a harder time connecting the people of the world."

--James Gosling, Inventor of Java, Sun Microsystems, Inc.

These and other software luminaries recognize that Unicode has become an indispensable tool for supporting an increasingly global marketplace (see inside for more acclaim). A comprehensive system of standards for representing alphabets throughout the world, Unicode is the basis for modern programming-- Windows, XML, Python, PERL, Mac OS, Linux--and every major search engine and browser in operation today.

New to Unicode Version 5.0

• A stable foundation for Unicode Security Mechanisms
• Property data for the Unicode Collation Algorithm and Common Locale Data Repository
• Improvements to the Unicode Encoding Model for UTF-8
• Rigorous stability of case folding and identifiers for improved interoperability and backward compatibility--enabling additional new ways to optimize code
• A systematic framework for improved text processing for greater reliability--covering combining characters, Unicode strings, line breaking, and segmentation

This new edition of Unicode's official reference manual has been substantially updated to document the latest revisions to the Unicode Standard, with hundreds of pages of new information. It includes major revisions to text, figures, tables, definitions, and conformance clauses, and provides clear and practical answers to common questions. For the first time, the book contains the Unicode Standard Annexes, which specify vital processes such as text normalization and identifier parsing.

These improvements are so important that Version 5.0 is the basis for Microsoft's Vista generation of operating systems, and is included in upgrade plans for Google, Yahoo!, and ICU, to name but a few.

This is the one book all developers using Unicode must have.

 

Table of Contents

List of Figures xxiii
List of Tables xxvii
Foreword by Mark Davis xxxi
Preface xxxiii
Acknowledgments xxxix
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
1.1 Coverage 2

1.2 Design Goals 4

1.3 Text Handling 5

Chapter 2 General Structure 9
2.1 Architectural Context 9

2.2 Unicode Design Principles 13

2.3 Compatibility Characters 23

2.4 Code Points and Characters 25

2.5 Encoding Forms 28

2.6 Encoding Schemes 35

2.7 Unicode Strings 37

2.8 Unicode Allocation 38

2.9 Details of Allocation 41

2.10 Writing Direction 46

2.11 Combining Characters 48

2.12 Equivalent Sequences and Normalization 54

2.13 Special Characters and Noncharacters 57

2.14 Conforming to the Unicode Standard 59

Chapter 3 Conformance 65
3.1 Versions of the Unicode Standard 65

3.2 Conformance Requirements 70

3.3 Semantics 76

3.4 Characters and Encoding 78

3.5 Properties 81

3.6 Combination 91

3.7 Decomposition 95

3.8 Surrogates 97

3.9 Unicode Encoding Forms 98

3.10 Unicode Encoding Schemes 105

3.11 Canonical Ordering Behavior 109

3.12 Conjoining Jamo Behavior 117

3.13 Default Case Algorithms 123

Chapter 4 Character Properties 129
4.1 Unicode Character Database 130

4.2 Case--Normative 132

4.3 Combining Classes--Normative 133

4.4 Directionality--Normative 138

4.5 General Category--Normative 138

4.6 Numeric Value--Normative 139

4.7 Bidi Mirrored--Normative 141

4.8 Name--Normative 142

4.9 Unicode 1.0 Names 144

4.10 Letters, Alphabetic, and Ideographic 144

4.11 Properties Related to Text Boundaries 145

4.12 Characters with Unusual Properties 145

Chapter 5 Implementation Guidelines 151
5.1 Transcoding to Other Standards 151

5.2 Programming Languages and Data Types 153

5.3 Unknown and Missing Characters 155

5.4 Handling Surrogate Pairs in UTF-16 157

5.5 Handling Numbers 158

5.6 Normalization 160

5.7 Compression 161

5.8 Newline Guidelines 161

5.9 Regular Expressions 166

5.10 Language Information in Plain Text 166

5.11 Editing and Selection 167

5.12 Strategies for Handling Nonspacing Marks 169

5.13 Rendering Nonspacing Marks 172

5.14 Locating Text Element Boundaries 178

5.15 Identifiers 179

5.16 Sorting and Searching 179

5.17 Binary Order 181

5.18 Case Mappings 184

5.19 Unicode Security 190

5.20 Default Ignorable Code Points 192

Chapter 6 Writing Systems and Punctuation 197
6.1 Writing Systems 198

6.2 General Punctuation 202

Chapter 7 European Alphabetic Scripts 225
7.1 Latin 226

7.2 Greek 237

7.3 Coptic 243

7.4 Cyrillic 245

7.5 Glagolitic 246

7.6 Armenian 247

7.7 Georgian 249

7.8 Modifier Letters 250

7.9 Combining Marks 252

Chapter 8 Middle Eastern Scripts 263
8.1 Hebrew 264

8.2 Arabic 269

8.3 Syriac 283

8.4 Thaana 291

Chapter 9 South Asian Scripts-I 295
9.1 Devanagari 296

9.2 Bengali 312

9.3 Gurmukhi 317

9.4 Gujarati 321

9.5 Oriya 322

9.6 Tamil 324

9.7 Telugu 330

9.8 Kannada 331

9.9 Malayalam 334

Chapter 10 South Asian Scripts-II 341
10.1 Sinhala 341

10.2 Tibetan 343

10.3 Phags-pa 353

10.4 Limbu 360

10.5 Syloti Nagri 363

10.6 Kharoshthi 364

Chapter 11 Southeast Asian Scripts 373
11.1 Thai 373

11.2 Lao 376

11.3 Myanmar 379

11.4 Khmer 382

11.5 Tai Le 393

11.6 New Tai Lue 394

11.7 Philippine Scripts 395

11.8 Buginese 397

11.9 Balinese 399

Chapter 12 East Asian Scripts 407
12.1 Han 408

12.2 Ideographic Description Characters 427

12.3 Bopomofo 431

12.4 Hiragana and Katakana 433

12.5 Halfwidth and Fullwidth Forms 434

12.6 Hangul 435

12.7 Yi 438

Chapter 13 Additional Modern Scripts 445
13.1 Ethiopic 445

13.2 Mongolian 448

13.3 Osmanya 457

13.4 Tifinagh 457

13.5 N'Ko 458

13.6 Cherokee 463

13.7 Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics 464

13.8 Deseret 465

13.9 Shavian 467
Chapter 14 Archaic Scripts 471
14.1 Ogham 472

14.2 Old Italic 473

14.3 Runic 475

14.4 Gothic 477

14.5 Linear B 478

14.6 Cypriot Syllabary 479

14.7 Phoenician 480

14.8 Ugaritic 482

14.9 Old Persian 483

14.10 Sumero-Akkadian 483

Chapter 15 Symbols 489
15.1 Currency Symbols 490

15.2 Letterlike Symbols 492

15.3 Number Forms 498

15.4 Mathematical Symbols 502

15.5 Invisible Mathematical Operators 507

15.6 Technical Symbols 508

15.7 Geometrical Symbols 512

15.8 Miscellaneous Symbols and Dingbats 514

15.9 Enclosed and Square 517

15.10 Braille 519

15.11 Western Musical Symbols 520

15.12 Byzantine Musical Symbols 525

15.13 Ancient Greek Musical Notation 526

Chapter 16 Special Areas and Format Characters 531
16.1 Control Codes 532

16.2 Layout Controls 534

16.3 Deprecated Format Characters 543

16.4 Variation Selectors 545

16.5 Private-Use Characters 546

16.6 Surrogates Area 548

16.7 Noncharacters 549

16.8 Specials 550

16.9 Tag Characters 554

Chapter 17 Code Charts 563
17.1 Character Names List 563

17.2 CJK Unified Ideographs 569

17.3 Hangul Syllables 570

Chapter 18 Han Radical-Stroke Index 1023
Appendix A Notational Conventions 1077
Appendix B Unicode Publications and Resources 1083
B.1 The Unicode Consortium 1083

B.2 Unicode Publications 1084

B.3 Unicode Technical Standards 1085

B.4 Unicode Technical Reports 1086

B.5 Unicode Technical Notes 1087

B.6 Other Unicode Online Resources 1088

Appendix C Relationship to ISO/IEC 10646 1091
C.1 History 1091

C.2 Encoding Forms in ISO/IEC 10646 1095

C.3 UCS Transformation Formats 1096

C.4 Synchronization of the Standards 1097

C.5 Identification of Features for the Unicode Standard 1097

C.6 Character Names 1098

C.7 Character Functional Specifications 1098

Appendix D Changes from Previous Versions 1099
D.1 Improvements to the Standard 1099

D.2 Versions of the Unicode Standard 1100

D.3 Clause and Definition Numbering Changes 1102

D.4 Changes from Version 4.1 to Version 5.0 1104

D.5 Changes from Version 4.0 to Version 4.1 1106

D.6 Changes from Unicode Version 3.2 to Version 4.0 1109

D.7 Changes from Unicode Version 3.1 to Version 3.2 1111

D.8 Changes from Unicode Version 3.0 to Version 3.1 1113

Appendix E Han Unification History 1115
E.1 Development of the URO 1115

E.2 Ideographic Rapporteur Group 1116

Appendix F Unicode Encoding Stability Policies 1119
F.1 Encoding Stability Policies for the Unicode Standard 1119

Glossary 1125
References 1153
R.1 Source Standards and Specifications 1153

R.2 Source Dictionaries for Han Unification 1161

R.3 Other Sources for the Unicode Standard 1161

R.4 Selected Resources: Technical 1171

R.5 Selected Resources: Scripts and Languages 1173

Indices 1179
I.1 Unicode Names Index 1179

I.2 General Index 1231

Annexes 1251
UAX 9: The Bidirectional Algorithm 1251

UAX 11: East Asian Width 1275

UAX 14: Line Breaking Properties 1283

UAX 15: Unicode Normalization Forms 1333

UAX 24: Script Names 1365

UAX 29: Text Boundaries 1373

UAX 31: Identifier and Pattern Syntax 1393

UAX 34: Unicode Named Character Sequences 1405

UAX 41: Common References for Unicode Standard