RFC 3629 · INTERNET STANDARD · 2003

UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646

Overview

RFC 3629, “UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646”, is an Internet Standard document published in November 2003 by F. Yergeau. It obsoletes RFC 2279. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

ISO/IEC 10646-1 defines a large character set called the Universal Character Set (UCS) which encompasses most of the world's writing systems. The originally proposed encodings of the UCS, however, were not compatible with many current applications and protocols, and this has led to the development of UTF-8, the object of this memo. UTF-8 has the characteristic of preserving the full US-ASCII range, providing compatibility with file systems, parsers and other software that rely on US-ASCII values but are transparent to other values. This memo obsoletes and replaces RFC 2279.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Internet Standard” means

A mature, widely-implemented specification that has completed the full IETF standards process — the highest maturity level on the standards track.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 3629 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in TXT,HTML.

Relationships to other RFCs
This RFC obsoletes
RFC 2279
Other RFCs from 2003

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