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What is a code set?

Question & Answer


Question

What is a code set?

Answer

A code set, also called a code page or character set, is a mapping of human-readable text to the string of bits used to store that text on disk media. Translation is done from one code set to another. As such, a translation utility must know the information contained in both code sets, and how the characters in one code set map to the other.

There are two general classes of code sets:

  • single-byte character sets (SBCS): Single-byte character sets can accommodate up to 255 characters. This is sufficient for most data needs in Europe and the Americas.

  • multi-byte character sets (MBCS): Multi-byte character sets use two (or more) bytes per character, allowing the code set to represent a far greater number of characters than single-byte character sets. z/OS Communications server provides numerous multi-byte character sets, including languages such as Japanese Kanji, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese.


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Product Synonym

ZOSCS COMMSERVER

Document Information

More support for:
z/OS Communications Server

Operating system(s):
z/OS

Document number:
6143289

Modified date:
10 November 2017

UID

dwa1412309

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