UTF-8

A Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) is the algorithmic mapping from every Unicode value to a unique byte sequence.

UTF-8 converts (via an algorithm) Unicode data so that it:

• Does not contain nulls, unless that was the character intended.
• Uses 8 data bits to encode the data
• Keeps all ASCII codes from 00 to 7F as encoded as themselves

For example, the string "ABC" in Unicode is "004100420043"x. However, in UTF-8 it is "414243".

Because UTF-8 allows Unicode data to flow over an 8-bit network without the network needing to know that it is Unicode, UTF-8 is used to store Unicode on several UNIX^® platforms and is used as the default encoding for most new internet standards.

UTF-8 is used mainly as a direct replacement for older MBCS encodings, which all use 8-bit code units, but it takes some more code to process it. It is a good encoding if 90% of your data is English, because all English letters use only one byte.

The operating system supports UTF-8 encoding with CCSID 1208.