If you’ve ever run into problems faced with multi-lingual text differences, Jason’s latest article will solve just that. Learn how to make use of Unicode character-sets when developing in a J2ME-based environment, where you’ll more than likely have a need to develop MIDlets in multiple languages.

What and Why Unicode

Unicode is a unique representation of a character; these characters range from Latin, Hebrew, and Japanese unique symbols. This character set is a universal standard called the ISO/IEC 10646, and can be compared to using ASCII. Like ASCII, a number represents each character; however, ASCII is limited to 7 bits, or in other words 128 character limitations. This has been able to cover everything in English-like languages and a few other symbols but, what about other languages and other symbols?

As the computer industry grew, especially in other countries, where the English language is not the dominant character set, new encoding schemes where invented. This can potentially cause problems when older systems, on different encoding schemes, interface with newer systems, or when systems from one country interface with a system from another country. The systems either become corrupt or simply crash due to the inability to communicate with each other. That is why Unicode was invented. The following statement is taken from http://www.unicode.org, and best summarizes what Unicode is and why we can benefit from it:

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About the Author:
Jason is a wireless and open source developer enthusiast who enjoys creating synergy and sharing knowledge in the software development world. To learn more about him visit his personal site at http://www.jasonlam604.com/