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UTF-16/UCS-2
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UTF-16/UCS-2

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Also known as 16-bit Unicode Transformation Format, Unicode Transformation Format – 16-bit, Unicode Transformation Format - 16-bit, UTF16, UTF_16

UTF-16 (16-bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a character encoding that supports all 1,112,064 valid code points of Unicode. The encoding is variable-length as code points are encoded with one or two code units. UTF-16 arose from an earlier obsolete fixed-width 16-bit encoding now known as UCS-2 (for 2-byte Universal Character Set), once it became clear that more than 216 (65,536) code points were needed, including most emoji and important CJK characters such as for personal and place names.

Key facts

Character encoding.name
UTF-16
Character encoding.mime
• text/plain;charset=UTF-16• text/plain; charset=utf-16le• text/plain; charset=utf-16be
Character encoding.image
UTF-16 encoding.svg
Character encoding.caption
Example of Unicode character encoding through UTF-16
Character encoding.standard
Unicode Standard
Character encoding.classification
Unicode Transformation Format, variable-width encoding
Character encoding.lang
International
Character encoding.encodes
ISO/IEC 10646 (Unicode)
Character encoding.extends
UCS-2

via Wikipedia infobox

Described at

IBM Documentation

IBM Documentation.

ibm.com

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