Unicode Character Database |
Revision | 4.0.1 |
Authors | Mark Davis and Ken Whistler |
Date | 2004-03-09 |
This Version | http://www.lm.org/Public/4.0-Update1/UCD-4.0.1.html |
Previous Version | http://www.unicode.org/Public/4.0-Update/UCD-4.0.0.html |
Latest Version | http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UCD.html |
This document describes the format and content of the Unicode Character Database (UCD)
This file and the files described herein are part of the Unicode Character Database and are governed by the terms of use at http://www.unicode.org/terms_of_use.html.
The References provide related information that is useful in understanding this document.
Warning: the information in this file does not completely describe the use and interpretation of Unicode character properties and behavior. It must be used in conjunction with the data in the other files in the Unicode Character Database, and relies on the notation and definitions supplied in The Unicode Standard. All chapter references are to Version 4.0.0 of the standard unless otherwise indicated.
The Unicode Character Database (UCD) is a set of files that define the Unicode character properties and internal mappings. This document describes the properties and files that are part of The Unicode Standard, Version 4.0.1 [U4.0.1]. For a description of the changes in this version, see Modification History.
This documentation file does not link directly to other files in the UCD. This is because the files need to be exactly the same in the specific update directory, and when copied to the "latest" directory (http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/).
For information on the meaning and application of the terms normative, informative, and provisional, see Section 3.5, "Properties" in the Unicode Standard, Version 4.0.
Files in the UCD use the following format, unless otherwise specified.
0000..007F; Basic Latin 0080..00FF; Latin-1 Supplement
# All code points not explicitly listed for Script # have the value Common (Zyyy).
03D2 ; FC_NFKC; 03C5 # L& GREEK UPSILON WITH HOOK SYMBOL 03D3 ; FC_NFKC; 03CD # L& GREEK UPSILON WITH ACUTE AND HOOK SYMBOL
1680 ; White_Space # Zs OGHAM SPACE MARK 180E ; White_Space # Zs MONGOLIAN VOWEL SEPARATOR 2000..200A ; White_Space # Zs [11] EN QUAD..HAIR SPACE
00BC..00BE ; numeric # No [3] VULGAR FRACTION ONE QUARTER..VULGAR FRACTION THREE QUARTERS
In some cases, segments of the file are distinguished by a line starting with an "@" sign.
The files are either Latin-1 or UTF-8. Unless otherwise noted, non-ASCII characters only appear in comments.
The following table describes the format and meaning of each property data file in the UCD. (An index by property name, rather than file, is found at Properties.) The first column lists the files and the properties for which they contain data. The second column indicates the type of the property: String, Numeric, Enumeration (non-binary), Binary, Catalog, or Miscellaneous. The last two types represent a refinement of the categorization of properties in this version of the Unicode Standard. Catalog properties have enumerated values which are expected to be regularly extended with successive versions of the Unicode Standard. This distinguishes them from Enumeration properties, whose enumerated values constitute a logical partition space, for which new values will generally not be added in successive versions of the standard. An example of a Catalog property is the Block property. Miscellaneous properties do not fit into the other property categories, and currently include character names, comments about characters, or the Unicode_Radical_Stroke property (a combination of numeric values). The third column indicates the status (Normative vs. Informative), and the fourth column provides a description of the data.
The files with a small number of properties are listed first, followed by the files with a large number of properties: DerivedCoreProperties.txt, DerivedNormalizationProps.txt, Proplist.txt, and UnicodeData.txt. For UnicodeData, the field numbers are supplied in the description. In a number of cases, fields in a data file only contribute to a UCD property; for example, the name field in UnicodeData.txt does not provide all the values for the Name property; Jamo.txt must be used as well.
None of these properties should be used without consulting the relevant discussions in the Unicode Standard.
Where a data file does not explicitly list property values for all code points, the code points are given default property values. These default property values are documented in the data files, with the exception of UnicodeData.txt. For that case the default property values are listed below in parentheses after the property name, with (=) indicating the code point itself. The default property values are also documented in any corresponding extracted data file.
ArabicShaping.txt | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Joining_Type Joining_Group |
E | N | Basic Arabic and Syriac character shaping properties, such as initial, medial and final shapes. See Section 8.2 |
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BidiMirroring.txt | |||||||||
Bidi_Mirroring_Glyph | S | I | Properties for substituting characters in an implementation of bidirectional mirroring. See UAX #9. Do not confuse this with the Bidi_Mirrored property. | ||||||
Blocks.txt | |||||||||
Block |
C |
N | List of block names, which are arbitrary names for ranges of code points. See Chapter 16. | ||||||
CompositionExclusions.txt | |||||||||
Composition Exclusion | B | N | Properties for normalization. See UAX #15. Unlike other files, CompositionExclusions simply lists the relevant code points. | ||||||
CaseFolding.txt | |||||||||
Simple_Case_Folding Case_Folding |
S |
N | Mapping from characters to their case-folded forms. This is an informative file containing normative derived properties.
Derived from UnicodeData and SpecialCasing. See UAX #21 |
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DerivedAge.txt | |||||||||
Age | C | N/I | This file shows when various code points were designated/assigned in successive versions of the Unicode standard. | ||||||
EastAsianWidth.txt | |||||||||
East_Asian_Width | E | I | Properties for determining the choice of wide vs. narrow glyphs in East Asian contexts. Property values are described in UAX #11. | ||||||
Hangul_Syllable_Type |
E |
N | The values L, V, T, LV, and LVT used in Chapter 3. | ||||||
used in Name |
S | N | The Hangul Syllable names are derived from the Jamo Short Names, as described in Chapter 3. | ||||||
LineBreak.txt | |||||||||
Line_Break | E | N/I | Properties for line breaking. For more information, see UAX #14. | ||||||
used in Decomposition Mappings | S | N | NormalizationCorrections lists code point differences for Normalization Corrigenda. See UAX #15 for more information. | ||||||
PropertyAliases.txt | |||||||||
n/a | S | N/I | Property names and abbreviations. These names can be used for XML formats of UCD data, for regular-expression property tests, and other programmatic textual descriptions of Unicode data. | ||||||
PropertyValueAliases.txt | |||||||||
n/a | S | N/I | Property value names and abbreviations. These names can be used for XML formats of UCD data, for regular-expression property tests, and other programmatic textual descriptions of Unicode data. | ||||||
Scripts.txt | |||||||||
Script |
C |
I | Default script values for use in regular expressions. For more information, see UTR #24. | ||||||
SpecialCasing.txt | |||||||||
Uppercase_Mapping Lowercase_Mapping Titlecase_Mapping Special_Case_Condition |
S | I | Data for producing (in combination with Unicode Data) the full case mappings. | ||||||
Unihan.txt (for more information, see Unihan Properties) | |||||||||
Numeric_Type Numeric_Value |
E | I | The characters tagged with kPrimaryNumeric, kAccountingNumeric, and kOtherNumeric
are given the Numeric_Type numeric, and the values indicated.
Most characters have these properties based on values from the UnicodeData.txt data file. See Numeric_Type. |
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Unicode_Radical_Stroke
|
S | I | The Unicode radical stroke count, based on the tag kRSUnicode. | ||||||
DerivedCoreProperties.txt | |||||||||
Alphabetic | B | I | Characters with the Alphabetic property. For more information, see Chapter 4, Character Properties.
Generated from: Other_Alphabetic + Lu + Ll + Lt + Lm + Lo + Nl |
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Default_Ignorable_Code_Point | B | N | For programmatic determination of default-ignorable code points. New characters that should be ignored in processing (unless explicitly supported) will be
assigned in these ranges, permitting programs to correctly handle the default behavior of such characters when not otherwise supported. For more information, see UAX
#29: Text Boundaries.
Generated from Other_Default_Ignorable_Code_Point + Cf + Cc + Cs + Noncharacters - White_Space - Annotation_characters |
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Lowercase | B | I | Characters with the Lowercase property. For more information, see Chapter 4, Character Properties.
Generated from: Other_Lowercase + Ll |
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Grapheme_Base | B | I | For programmatic determination of grapheme cluster boundaries. For more information, see UAX #29: Text
Boundaries.
Generated from: [0..10FFFF] - Cc - Cf - Cs - Co - Cn - Zl - Zp - Grapheme_Extend |
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Grapheme_Extend | B | I | For programmatic determination of grapheme cluster boundaries. For more information, see UAX #29: Text
Boundaries.
Generated from: Other_Grapheme_Extend + Me + Mn Note: depending on an application's interpretation of Co (private use), they may be either in Grapheme_Base, or in Grapheme_Extend, or in neither. |
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ID_Start | B | I | Characters that can start an identifier.
Generated from Lu + Ll + Lt + Lm + Lo + Nl + Other_ID_Start |
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ID_Continue | B | I | Characters that can continue an identifier. See Cf Note.
Generated from: ID_Start + Mn + Mc + Nd + Pc |
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Math | B | I | Characters with the Math property. For more information, see Chapter 4, Character Properties.
Generated from: Sm + Other_Math |
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Uppercase | B | I | Characters with the Uppercase property. For more information, see Chapter 4, Character Properties.
Generated from: Lu + Other_Uppercase |
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XID_Start | B | I | Same as ID_Start, except for modifications to allow closure under normalization forms NFKC and NFKD.
Generated from: ID_Start; see Closure Note |
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XID_Continue | B | I | Same as ID_Continue, except for modifications to allow closure under normalization forms NFKC and NFKD.
Generated from: ID_Continue; see Closure Note and Cf Note. |
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DerivedNormalizationProps.txt | |||||||||
Full_Composition_Exclusion | B | N | Characters that are excluded from composition: those explicitly in CompositionExclusions.txt, plus: (3) Singleton Decompositions (4) Non-Starter Decompositions |
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Expands_On_NFC Expands_On_NFD Expands_On_NFKC Expands_On_NFKD |
B | N | Characters that expand to more than one character in the specified normalization form. | ||||||
FC_NFKC_Closure | S | N | Characters that require extra mappings for closure under Case Folding plus Normalization Form KC. Characters marked with this property have a third field
with the mapping in it. Generated with the following, where Fold is the default fold operation (not Turkic):
b = NFKC(Fold(a)); c = NFKC(Fold(b)); if (c != b) add mapping from a to c |
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NFD_Quick_Check NFKD_Quick_Check NFC_Quick_Check NFKC_Quick_Check |
E | N | For property values, see Decompositions and Normalization. | ||||||
Proplist.txt | |||||||||
ASCII_Hex_Digit | B | N | ASCII characters commonly used for the representation of hexadecimal numbers. | ||||||
Bidi_Control | B | N | Those format control characters which have specific functions in the Bidirectional Algorithm. | ||||||
Dash | B | I | Those punctuation characters explicitly called out as dashes in the Unicode Standard, plus compatibility equivalents to those. Most of these have the Pd General Category, but some have the Sm General Category because of their use in mathematics. | ||||||
Deprecated | B | N | For a machine-readable list of deprecated characters. No characters will ever be removed from the standard, but the usage of deprecated characters is strongly discouraged. | ||||||
Diacritic | B | I | Characters that linguistically modify the meaning of another character to which they apply. Some diacritics are not combining characters, and some combining characters are not diacritics. | ||||||
Extender | B | I | Characters whose principal function is to extend the value or shape of a preceding alphabetic character. Typical of these are length and iteration marks. | ||||||
Grapheme_Link | B | N | Used in determining default grapheme cluster boundaries. For more information, see UAX #29: Text Boundaries. | ||||||
Hex_Digit | B | I | Characters commonly used for the representation of hexadecimal numbers, plus their compatibility equivalents. | ||||||
Hyphen (Stabilized as of 3.2) | B | I | Those dashes used to mark connections between pieces of words, plus the Katakana middle dot. The Katakana middle dot functions like a hyphen, but is shaped like a dot rather than a dash. | ||||||
Ideographic | B | I | Characters considered to be CJKV (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese) ideographs. | ||||||
IDS_Binary_Operator | B | N | Used in Ideographic Description Sequences. | ||||||
IDS_Trinary_Operator | B | N | Used in Ideographic Description Sequences. | ||||||
Join_Control | B | N | Those format control characters which have specific functions for control of cursive joining and ligation. | ||||||
Logical_Order_Exception | B | N | There are a small number of characters that do not use logical order. These characters require special handling in most processing. | ||||||
Noncharacter_Code_Point | B | N | Code points that are explicitly defined as illegal for the encoding of characters. | ||||||
Other_Alphabetic | B | I | Used in deriving the Alphabetic property. | ||||||
Other_Default_Ignorable_Code_Point | B | N | Used in deriving the Default_Ignorable_Code_Point property. | ||||||
Other_Grapheme_Extend | B | N | Used in deriving the Grapheme_Extend property. | ||||||
Other_ID_Start | B | N | Used for backwards compatibility of ID_Start | ||||||
Other_Lowercase | B | I | Used in deriving the Lowercase property. | ||||||
Other_Math | B | I | Used in deriving the Math property. | ||||||
Other_Uppercase | B | I | Used in deriving the Uppercase property. | ||||||
Quotation_Mark | B | I | Those punctuation characters that function as quotation marks. | ||||||
Radical | B | N | Used in Ideographic Description Sequences. | ||||||
Soft_Dotted | B | N | Characters with a "soft dot", like i or j. An accent placed on these characters causes the dot to disappear. An explicit dot above can be added where required, such as in Lithuanian. | ||||||
STerm | B | I | Sentence Terminal. Used in UAX #29: Text Boundaries | ||||||
Terminal_Punctuation | B | I | Those punctuation characters that generally mark the end of textual units. | ||||||
Unified_Ideograph | B | N | Used in Ideographic Description Sequences. | ||||||
Variation_Selector | B | N | Indicates all those characters that qualify as Variation Selectors. For details on the behavior of these characters, see StandardizedVariants.html and 15.6 Variation Selectors | ||||||
White_Space | B | N | Those separator characters and control characters which should be treated by programming languages as "white space" for the purpose of parsing
elements.
Note: ZERO WIDTH SPACE and ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE are not included, since their functions are restricted to line-break control. Their names are unfortunately misleading in this respect. Note: There are other senses of "whitespace" that encompass a different set of characters. |
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Name* (<reserved>) | M | N | (1) These names match exactly the names published in the code charts of the Unicode Standard. The Hangul Syllable names are omitted from this file; see Jamo.txt. | ||||||
General_Category (Cn) | E | N | (2) This is a useful breakdown into various character types which can be used as a default categorization in implementations. For the property values, see General Category Values. | ||||||
Canonical_Combining_Class (0) | N | N | (3) The classes used for the Canonical Ordering Algorithm in the Unicode Standard. For the property value names associated with different numeric values, see DerivedCombiningClass.txt and Canonical Combining Class Values. | ||||||
Bidi_Class (L, AL, R) | E | N | (4) These are the categories required by the Bidirectional Behavior Algorithm in the Unicode Standard. For the property values, see Bidi
Class Values. For more information, see
UAX #9 The Bidirectional Algorithm.
The default property values depend on the code point:
|
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Decomposition_Type (None) Decomposition_Mapping (=) |
E S |
N | (5) This field contains both values, with the type in angle brackets. The decomposition mappings match exactly the decomposition mappings published with the character names in the Unicode Standard. For more information, see Character Decomposition Mappings. | ||||||
Numeric_Type (None) Numeric_Value (Not a Number) |
E N |
N | (6) If the character has the decimal digit property, as specified in Chapter 4 of the Unicode Standard, then the value of that digit is represented with an integer value in fields 6, 7, and 8. | ||||||
E N |
N | (7) If the character has the digit property, but is not a decimal digit, then the value of that digit is represented with an integer value in fields 7 and 8. This covers digits that need special handling, such as the compatibility superscript digits. | |||||||
E N |
N | (8) If the character has the numeric property, as specified in Chapter 4 of the Unicode Standard, the value of that character is represented with an
positive or negative integer or rational number in this field. This includes fractions as, e.g., "1/5" for U+2155 VULGAR FRACTION ONE FIFTH.
Some characters have these properties based on values from the Unihan data file. See Numeric_Type, Han. |
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Bidi_Mirrored (N) | B | N | (9) If the character has been identified as a "mirrored" character in bidirectional text, this field has the value "Y"; otherwise "N". The list of mirrored characters is also printed in Chapter 4 of the Unicode Standard. Do not confuse this with the Bidi_Mirroring_Glyph property. | ||||||
Unicode_1_Name (<none>) | M | I | (10) This is the old name as published in Unicode 1.0. This name is only provided when it is significantly different from the current name for the character. The value of field 10 for control characters does not always match the Unicode 1.0 names. Instead, field 10 contains ISO 6429 names for control functions, for printing in the code charts. | ||||||
ISO_Comment (<none>) |
M |
I | (11) This is the ISO 10646 comment field. It appears in parentheses in the 10646 names list, or contains an asterisk to mark an Annex P note. | ||||||
Simple_Uppercase_Mapping (=) | S | N | (12) Simple uppercase mapping (single character result). If a character is part of an alphabet with case distinctions, and has a simple upper case
equivalent, then the upper case equivalent is in this field. See the explanation below on case distinctions. The simple mappings have a single character result, where the
full mappings may have multi-character results. For more information, see Case Mappings.
Note: The simple uppercase may be omitted in the data file if the uppercase is the same as the code point itself. |
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Simple_Lowercase_Mapping (=) | S | N | (13) Simple lowercase mapping (single character result). Similar to Uppercase mapping.
Note: The simple lowercase may be omitted in the data file if the lowercase is the same as the code point itself. |
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Simple_Titlecase_Mapping (=) | S | N | (14) Similar to Uppercase mapping (single character result).
Note: The simple titlecase may be omitted in the data file if the titlecase is the same as the uppercase. |
Notes
if isIdentifer(string)
then
isIdentifier(NFKC(string))
and
isIdentifier(NFKD(string))
For more information on identifiers, see Chapter 5, Implementation Guidelines, and UAX #15, Annex 7.
The following table lists the properties in the UCD. They are roughly organized into groups based on the usage of the property (this grouping is purely for convenience, and has no other implications). The link on each property leads to description in the file index. The contributory properties (those of the form Other_XXX) are sets of exceptions used to generate properties in DerivedCoreProperties.txt. They are not intended for general use, such as in APIs that return property values.
Properties and property values may have multiple aliases, such as abbreviated names and longer, more descriptive names. For example, one can write either Line_Break or LB for the Line Break property, and either OP or Open_Punctuation for one of its values. When matching property names and values, it is strongly recommended that all aliases in the UCD be recognized, and that loose matching should be applied to all property names and property values according to the following:
Numeric Properties
For all numeric properties, and properties such as Unicode_Radical_Stroke that are combinations of numeric values, use the following loose matching rule:
LM1. Apply numeric equivalences
Character Names
LM2. Ignore case, whitespace, underscore ('_'), and all medial hyphens except the hyphen in U+1180.
Others
For all property names, property value names, and for property values for Enumerated, Binary, or Catalog properties, use the following loose matching rule:
LM3. Ignore case, whitespace, underscore ('_'), and hyphens.
Otherwise loose matching should not be done for the property values of String properties, as case distinctions or other distinctions in those values may be significant.
The following gives a summary of property values for certain properties. Other property values are documented in other locations; for example, the line breaking property values are documented in UAX #14.
The values in this field are abbreviations for the following values. For more information, see the Unicode Standard.
Note: The Unicode Standard does not assign information to control characters (except for certain cases). Implementations will generally also assign categories to certain control characters, notably CR and LF, according to platform conventions. See Section 5.8 "Newline Guidelines" for more information.
Abbr. |
Description |
---|---|
Lu | Letter, Uppercase |
Ll | Letter, Lowercase |
Lt | Letter, Titlecase |
Lm | Letter, Modifier |
Lo | Letter, Other |
Mn | Mark, Nonspacing |
Mc | Mark, Spacing Combining |
Me | Mark, Enclosing |
Nd | Number, Decimal Digit |
Nl | Number, Letter |
No | Number, Other |
Pc | Punctuation, Connector |
Pd | Punctuation, Dash |
Ps | Punctuation, Open |
Pe | Punctuation, Close |
Pi | Punctuation, Initial quote (may behave like Ps or Pe depending on usage) |
Pf | Punctuation, Final quote (may behave like Ps or Pe depending on usage) |
Po | Punctuation, Other |
Sm | Symbol, Math |
Sc | Symbol, Currency |
Sk | Symbol, Modifier |
So | Symbol, Other |
Zs | Separator, Space |
Zl | Separator, Line |
Zp | Separator, Paragraph |
Cc | Other, Control |
Cf | Other, Format |
Cs | Other, Surrogate |
Co | Other, Private Use |
Cn | Other, Not Assigned (no characters in the file have this property) |
Note: The term "L&" is used to stand for Uppercase, Lowercase or Titlecase letters (Lu, Ll, or Lt) in comments. The LC value in PropertyValueAliases.txt also stands for Uppercase, Lowercase or Titlecase letters.
Please refer to UAX #9: The Bidirectional Algorithm for an explanation of the algorithm for Bidirectional Behavior and an explanation of the significance of these categories.
Type |
Description |
---|---|
L | Left-to-Right |
LRE | Left-to-Right Embedding |
LRO | Left-to-Right Override |
R | Right-to-Left |
AL | Right-to-Left Arabic |
RLE | Right-to-Left Embedding |
RLO | Right-to-Left Override |
Pop Directional Format | |
EN | European Number |
ES | European Number Separator |
ET | European Number Terminator |
AN | Arabic Number |
CS | Common Number Separator |
NSM | Non-Spacing Mark |
BN | Boundary Neutral |
B | Paragraph Separator |
S | Segment Separator |
WS | Whitespace |
ON | Other Neutrals |
The tags supplied with certain decomposition mappings generally indicate formatting information. Where no such tag is given, the mapping is canonical. Conversely, the presence of a formatting tag also indicates that the mapping is a compatibility mapping and not a canonical mapping. In the absence of other formatting information in a compatibility mapping, the tag is used to distinguish it from canonical mappings.
In some instances a canonical mapping or a compatibility mapping may consist of a single character. For a canonical mapping, this indicates that the character is a canonical equivalent of another single character. For a compatibility mapping, this indicates that the character is a compatibility equivalent of another single character. The compatibility formatting tags used are:
Tag |
Description |
---|---|
<font> | A font variant (e.g. a blackletter form). |
<noBreak> | A no-break version of a space or hyphen. |
<initial> | An initial presentation form (Arabic). |
<medial> | A medial presentation form (Arabic). |
<final> | A final presentation form (Arabic). |
<isolated> | An isolated presentation form (Arabic). |
<circle> | An encircled form. |
<super> | A superscript form. |
<sub> | A subscript form. |
<vertical> | A vertical layout presentation form. |
<wide> | A wide (or zenkaku) compatibility character. |
<narrow> | A narrow (or hankaku) compatibility character. |
<small> | A small variant form (CNS compatibility). |
<square> | A CJK squared font variant. |
<fraction> | A vulgar fraction form. |
<compat> | Otherwise unspecified compatibility character. |
Reminder: There is a difference between decomposition and decomposition mapping. The decomposition mappings are defined in the UnicodeData, while the decomposition (also termed "full decomposition") is defined in Chapter 3 to use those mappings recursively.
Value |
Description |
---|---|
0: | Spacing, split, enclosing, reordrant, and Tibetan subjoined |
1: | Overlays and interior |
7: | Nuktas |
8: | Hiragana/Katakana voicing marks |
9: | Viramas |
10: | Start of fixed position classes |
199: | End of fixed position classes |
200: | Below left attached |
202: | Below attached |
204: | Below right attached |
208: | Left attached (reordrant around single base character) |
210: | Right attached |
212: | Above left attached |
214: | Above attached |
216: | Above right attached |
218: | Below left |
220: | Below |
222: | Below right |
224: | Left (reordrant around single base character) |
226: | Right |
228: | Above left |
230: | Above |
232: | Above right |
233: | Double below |
234: | Double above |
240: | Below (iota subscript) |
Note: some of the combining classes in this list do not currently have members but are specified here for completeness.
Decomposition is specified in Chapter 3. UAX #15: Unicode Normalization Forms specifies the interaction between decomposition and normalization. That report specifies how the decompositions defined in UnicodeData.txt are used to derive normalized forms of Unicode text.
Note that as of the 2.1.9 update of the Unicode Character Database, the decompositions in the UnicodeData.txt file can be used to recursively derive the full decomposition in canonical order, without the need to separately apply canonical reordering. However, canonical reordering of combining character sequences must still be applied in decomposition when normalizing source text which contains any combining marks.
The QuickCheck property values are as follows:
Value | Property | Description |
---|---|---|
No | NF*_QC | Characters that cannot ever occur in the respective normalization form. See Decompositions and Normalization. |
Maybe | NFC_QC, NFKC_QC | Characters that may occur in in the respective normalization, depending on the context. See Decompositions and Normalization. |
Yes | n/a | All other characters. This is the default value, and is not explicitly listed in the file. |
For more information, see UAX #15 Annex 8.
There are a number of complications to case mappings that occur once the repertoire of characters is expanded beyond ASCII. For more information, see Chapter 3 in Unicode 4.0.
For compatibility with existing parsers, UnicodeData.txt only contains case mappings for characters where they are one-to-one mappings; it also omits information about context-sensitive case mappings. Information about these special cases can be found in a separate data file, SpecialCasing.txt.
The following is a summary of the data tags in the Unihan.txt file. Only a few of these correspond to Unicode normative or informative properties: the rest are provisional. For more information on the meaning of these tags, see the header of the data file.
Category | Property Name | Description from Unihan (abbreviated) |
---|---|---|
Numeric | kAccountingNumeric | The value of the character when used in the writing of accounting numerals. |
kOtherNumeric | The numeric value for the character in certain unusual, specialized contexts. | |
kPrimaryNumeric | The value of the character when used in the writing of numbers in the standard fashion. | |
Variants | kSemanticVariant | The Unicode value for a semantic variant for this character. A semantic variant is an x- or y-variant with similar or identical meaning which can generally be used in place of the indicated character. |
kSimplifiedVariant | The Unicode value for the simplified Chinese variant for this character (if any). | |
kSpecializedSemanticVariant | The Unicode value for a specialized semantic variant for this character. A specialized semantic variant is an x- or y-variant with similar or identical meaning only in certain contexts (such as accountants' numerals). | |
kTraditionalVariant | The Unicode value(s) for the traditional Chinese variant(s) for this character. | |
kZVariant | The Unicode value(s) for known z-variants of this character. | |
Radical/Stroke | kRSUnicode | A standard radical/stroke count for this character in the form "radical.additional strokes". A ' after the radical indicates the simplified version of the given radical. |
kRSJapanese | A Japanese radical/stroke count for this character in the form "radical.additional strokes". | |
kRSKanWa | A Morohashi radical/stroke count for this character in the form "radical.additional strokes". | |
kRSKangXi | A KangXi radical/stroke count for this character in the form "radical.additional strokes". | |
kRSKorean | A Korean radical/stroke count for this character in the form "radical.additional strokes". A ' after the radical indicates the simplified version of the given radical. | |
kTotalStrokes | The total number of strokes in the character (including the radical). | |
Pronunciations | kCantonese | The Cantonese pronunciation(s) for this character. |
kJapaneseKun | The Japanese pronunciation(s) of this character. | |
kJapaneseOn | The Sino-Japanese pronunciation(s) of this character. | |
kKorean | The Korean pronunciation(s) of this character. | |
kMandarin | The Mandarin pronunciation(s) for this character in pinyin. | |
kTang* | The Tang dynasty pronunciation(s) of this character, derived from _T'ang Poetic Vocabulary_. | |
kVietnamese | The character's pronunciation(s) in Quốc ngữ | |
Definition | kDefinition | An English definition for this character. |
Frequency | kFrequency | A rough frequency measurement for the character based on analysis of Chinese USENET postings. |
Grade | kGradeLevel* | The grade in the Hong Kong school system by which a student is expected to know the character. |
Dictionary Position | kAlternateKangXi | An alternate possible position for the character in the KangXi dictionary. |
kAlternateMorohashi | An alternate possible position for the character in the Morohashi dictionary. | |
kCihaiT* | The position of this character in the Cihai (辭海) dictionary, single volume edition, published in Hong Kong by the Zhonghua Bookstore, 1983 (reprint of the 1947 edition), ISBN 962-231-005-2. | |
kCowles* | The index of this character in Roy T. Cowles, _A Pocket Dictionary of Cantonese_, Hong Kong: University Press, 1999. | |
kDaeJaweon | The position of this character in the Dae Jaweon (Korean) dictionary used in the four-dictionary sorting algorithm. | |
kFenn* | Data on the character from _Fenn's Chinese-English Pocket Dictionary_. | |
kHanYu | The position of this character in the Hanyu Da Zidian (HDZ) Chinese character dictionary (bibliographic information below). | |
kHKGlyph* | The index of the character in 常用字字形表 (二零零零年修訂本), 香港: 香港教育學院, 2000, ISBN 962-949-040-4. This publication gives the "proper" shapes for characters as used in the Hong Kong school system. | |
kIRGDaeJaweon | The position of this character in the Dae Jaweon (Korean) dictionary used in the four-dictionary sorting algorithm. | |
kIRGDaiKanwaZiten | The index of this character in the Dae Kanwa Ziten, aka Morohashi dictionary (Japanese) used in the four-dictionary sorting algorithm. | |
kIRGHanyuDaZidian | The position of this character in the Hanyu Da Zidian (PRC) dictionary used in the four-dictionary sorting algorithm. | |
kIRGKangXi | The position of this character in the KangXi dictionary used in the four-dictionary sorting algorithm. | |
kKangXi | The position of this character in the KangXi dictionary used in the four-dictionary sorting algorithm. | |
kKarlgren* | The index of this character in _Analytic Dictionary of Chinese and Sino-Japanese_. | |
kLau* | The index of this character in _A Practical Cantonese-English Dictionary_. | |
kMatthews | The index of this character in _Mathews' Chinese-English Dictionary_. | |
kMeyerWempe* | The index of this character in the Student's Cantonese-English Dictionary. | |
kMorohashi | The index of this character in the Dae Kanwa Ziten, aka Morohashi dictionary (Japanese) used in the four-dictionary sorting algorithm. | |
kNelson | The index of this character in _The Modern Reader's Japanese-English Character Dictionary_. | |
kPhonetic* | The phonetic index for the character from _Ten Thousand Characters: An Analytic Dictionary_. | |
kSBGY | The position of this character in the Song Ben Guang Yun (SBGY) Medieval Chinese character dictionary (bibliographic and general information below). | |
kCangjie* | The cangjie input code for the character. This incorporates data from the file cangjie-table.b5 by Christian Wittern. | |
kHanyuPinlu | The pronunciations and frequencies of the character, as derived from _Xiandai Hanyu Pinlu Cidian_ (1994). | |
kGSR | The position of this character in Bernhard's _Grammata Serica Recensa_ (1957). | |
Character Mapping | kBigFive | The Big Five mapping for this character in hex; note that this does *not* cover any of the Big Five extensions in common use, including the ETEN extensions. |
kCCCII | The CCCII mapping for this character in hex. | |
kCNS1986 | The CNS 11643-1986 mapping for this character in hex. | |
kCNS1992 | The CNS 11643-1992 mapping for this character in hex. | |
kEACC | The EACC mapping for this character in hex. | |
kGB0 | The GB 2312-80 mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kGB1 | The GB 12345-90 mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kGB3 | The GB 7589-87 mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kGB5 | The GB 7590-87 mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kGB7 | The "General Use Characters for Modern Chinese" mapping for this character. | |
kGB8 | The GB 8565-89 mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kHKSCS | Mappings to the Big Five extended code points used for the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set. | |
kIBMJapan | The IBM Japanese mapping for this character in hex. | |
kIRG_GSource | The IRG "G" source mapping for this character in hex. The IRG "G" source consists of data from the following national standards, publications, and lists from the People's Republic of China and Singapore. | |
kIRG_HSource | The IRG "H" source mapping for this character in hex. The IRG "H" source consists of data from the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set. | |
kIRG_JSource | The IRG "J" source mapping for this character in hex. The IRG "J" source consists of data from the following national standards and lists from Japan. | |
kIRG_KSource | The IRG "K" source mapping for this character in hex. The IRG "K" source consists of data from the following national standards and lists from the Republic of Korea (South Korea). | |
kIRG_KPSource | The IRG "KP" source mapping for this character in hex. The IRG "KP" source consists of data from the following national standards and lists from the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). | |
kIRG_TSource | The IRG "T" source mapping for this character in hex. The IRG "T" source consists of data from the following national standards and lists from the Republic of China (Taiwan). | |
kIRG_VSource | The IRG "V" source mapping for this character in hex. The IRG "V" source consists of data from the following national standards and lists from Vietnam. | |
kIRG_USource | The IRG "U" source mapping for this character. | |
kJIS0213 | The JIS X 0213-2000 mapping for this character in min,ku,ten form. | |
kJis0 | The JIS X 0208-1990 mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kJis1 | The JIS X 0212-1990 mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kKPS0 | The KP 9566-97 mapping for this character in hexadecimal form. | |
kKPS1 | The KPS 10721-2000 mapping for this character in hexadecimal form. | |
kKSC0 | The KS X 1001:1992 (KS C 5601-1989) mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kKSC1 | The KS X 1002:1991 (KS C 5657-1991) mapping for this character in ku/ten form. | |
kMainlandTelegraph | The PRC telegraph code for this character, derived from "Kanzi denpou koudo henkan-hyou". | |
kPseudoGB1 | A "GB 12345-90" code point assigned this character for the purposes of including it within Unihan. | |
kTaiwanTelegraph | The Taiwanese telegraph code for this character, derived from "Kanzi denpou koudo henkan-hyou". | |
kXerox | The Xerox code for this character. | |
Redundant | kCompatibilityVariant* | The compatibility decomposition for this ideograph, derived from the UnicodeData.txt file. |
The following files in the Unicode Character Database are not used directly for Unicode properties. For more information about these files, see the referenced technical report(s), files, or section of Unicode Standard.
".txt" File | Description | N/I | Summary |
---|---|---|---|
Index | Chapter 16 | I | Index to Unicode characters, as printed in the Unicode Standard. |
NamesList | Chapter 16 | I | This file duplicates some of the material in the UnicodeData file, and adds annotations used in the character charts. |
NormalizationTest | UAX #15 | N | Test file for conformance to Unicode Normalization Forms. |
StandardizedVariants | Chapter 15 | N | Lists all the standardized variant sequences that have been defined, plus a description of the desired appearance. StandardizedVariants.html contains this information, plus a sample glyph showing the desired features. |
The following files contain other properties of the UCD that are simply separated out, and listed in range format. These files are provided purely as a reformatting of existing data, with a certain exceptions listed below. They are all contained in a subdirectory called extracted.
Files | N/I | Definition and Generation | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
DerivedBidiClass* | N | From UnicodeData.txt, field 4 | ||||||||
DerivedBinaryProperties* | N | From UnicodeData.txt, field 9. See Bidi Note. | ||||||||
DerivedCombiningClass* | N | From UnicodeData.txt, field 3 | ||||||||
DerivedDecompositionType* | * | From the <tag> in UnicodeData.txt, field 5. For characters with canonical decomposition mappings (no tag), the value "canonical" is used.
* The value "canonical" is normative; the others are informative. |
||||||||
DerivedEastAsianWidth* | I | From EastAsianWidth.txt, field 1 * Note: in the 4.0.1 version (and earlier) of EastAsianWidth.txt, it is documented as field 2. |
||||||||
DerivedGeneralCategory* | N | From UnicodeData.txt, field 2 | ||||||||
DerivedJoiningGroup* | N | From ArabicShaping.txt, field 2 | ||||||||
DerivedJoiningType* | N | From ArabicShaping.txt, field 1 | ||||||||
DerivedLineBreak* | * | From LineBreak.txt, field 1.
* Some values are normative; some are informative. See UAX #14: Line Breaking Properties for more information. Note: in the 4.0.1 version (and earlier) of LineBreak.txt it is documented as field 2. |
||||||||
DerivedNumericType* | N | The property value is based on the contents of UnicodeData.txt, fields 6 through 8:
|
||||||||
DerivedNumericValues* | N | Non-binary Property
From UnicodeData.txt, field 8 |
Bidi Note: The BidiMirrored property and the BidiMirroring property are different. The former is a normative property that indicates whether characters are mirrored in a right-to-left context in the Unicode Bidirectional Algorithm. The latter is an informative mapping of BidiMirrored characters, where possible, to characters that normally have the corresponding mirrored glyph.
Values in the UCD are subject to correction as errors are found; however, some characteristics of the properties and files are considered invariants. Applications may wish to take these invariants into account when choosing how to implement character properties. The most important invariants are described in Unicode Policies. The following lists some additional invariants and more detail on some of the invariants in Unicode Policies.
[FAQ] | Unicode Frequently Asked Questions http://www.unicode.org/faq/ For answers to common questions on technical issues. |
[Glossary] | Unicode Glossary http://www.unicode.org/glossary/ For explanations of terminology used in this and other documents. |
[Reports] | Unicode Technical Reports http://www.unicode.org/reports/ For information on the status and development process for technical reports, and for a list of technical reports. |
[U4.0] | The Unicode Standard Version 4.0 http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.0/ |
[U4.0.1] | The Unicode Standard Version 4.0.1 http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode4.0.1/ |
[Versions] | Versions of the Unicode Standard http://www.unicode.org/versions/ For details on the precise contents of each version of the Unicode Standard, and how to cite them. |
This section provides a summary of the changes between update versions of the Unicode Standard. The modifications prior to Unicode 4.0 only listed changes in UnicodeData.txt. From 4.0 onward, the consolidated modifications include the changes in other files.
This document:
Common file changes:
Some property values have different casing (upper vs. lower) for consistency between the data files and the PropertyValueAlias file. There are some additional changes in comments:
Changes in specific files:
In some of the following, reference is made to a Public Review Issue (PRI). See http://www.unicode.org/review/resolved-pri.html for more information about those cases.
Modifications made for Version 3.2.0 of UnicodeData.txt include:
- Addition of 1016 new entries, to cover new characters encoded in Unicode 3.2.
- Updated ISO 6429 names for control functions to match the currently published version of that standard.
- Changed general category for Mongolian free variation selectors (U+180B..U+180D) from Cf to Mn.
- Changed general category for U+0B83 TAMIL SIGN VISARGA (aytham) from Mc to Lo.
- Changed general category for U+06DD ARABIC END OF AYAH from Me to Cf.
- Changed general category for U+17D7 KHMER SIGN LEK TOO from Po to Lm.
- Changed general category for U+17DC KHMER SIGN AVAKRAHASANYA from Po to Lo.
- Changed canonical decomposition for U+F951 from 96FB to 964B (see Corrigendum #3: U+F951 Normalization).
Modifications made for Version 3.1.1 of UnicodeData.txt include:
Modifications made for Version 3.1.0 of UnicodeData.txt include:
Modifications made for Version 3.0.1 of UnicodeData.txt include:
Modifications made for Version 3.0.0 of UnicodeData.txt include many new characters and a number of property changes. These are summarized in Appendix D of The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0.
Modifications made for Version 2.1.9 of UnicodeData.txt include:
Modifications made for Version 2.1.8 of UnicodeData.txt include:
This version was for internal change tracking only, and never publicly released.
This version was for internal change tracking only, and never publicly released.
Modifications made for Version 2.1.5 of UnicodeData.txt include:
This version was for internal change tracking only, and never publicly released.
This version was for internal change tracking only, and never publicly released.
Modifications made in updating UnicodeData.txt to Version 2.1.2 for the Unicode Standard, Version 2.1 (from Version 2.0) include:
This version was for internal change tracking only, and never publicly released.
The modifications made in updating UnicodeData.txt for the Unicode Standard, Version 2.0 include:
For terms of use, see http://www.unicode.org/terms_of_use.html.