Class XI Computer Science (083) — Encoding Schemes
Encoding Schemes
1. Introduction to Character Encoding
Character Encoding is a system that assigns a unique numeric (binary) code to every character — letters, digits,
punctuation marks, symbols, and special characters — so that computers, which only understand binary (0s and
1s), can store, process, and display text.
Characters
│
▼
Character Encoding (assigns numeric code)
│
▼
Binary Codes (0s and 1s)
│
▼
Computer Storage / Transmission / Display
For example, the letter 'A' is stored in a computer as the binary code 01000001 (decimal 65) using ASCII
encoding.
REMEMBER
A computer does not understand letters or symbols directly — it only understands electrical signals represented
as 0s and 1s. Character encoding is the 'translator' between human-readable text and machine-readable binary.
3. Why Character Encoding Is Needed
● To convert human-readable characters into a form that computers can store and process (binary).
● To ensure uniform communication between different computers, software, and devices.
● To enable text to be correctly saved, retrieved, transmitted over networks, and displayed.
● To support multiple languages, scripts, symbols, and special characters (like emojis and currency signs) used
worldwide.
● To allow interoperability — a file created on one computer/system displays correctly on another.
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Class XI Computer Science (083) — Encoding Schemes
DID YOU KNOW?
Without a common encoding standard, a document created on one computer might show meaningless symbols
(often called 'mojibake') when opened on another computer using a different encoding!
4. Evolution of Character Encoding
The need to represent more characters — especially from world languages and symbols — drove the evolution
of encoding standards:
1960s 1980s-90s 1991-present
│ │ │
▼ ▼ ▼
ASCII ─────────► Extended ASCII / ISCII ────► UNICODE
(7-bit, English (8-bit, more symbols & (Universal, supports
only, 128 chars) Indian languages) all world languages,
emojis, symbols)
2. ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)
Definition
ASCII is a character encoding standard that represents text in computers using numeric codes. It uses 7 bits to
represent each character, allowing for 128 unique characters (0–127). It was first developed by ANSI and later
became the foundation for all encoding schemes.
Features
● Uses 7 bits per character → 2⁷ = 128 possible characters (codes 0–127).
● Includes English uppercase (A–Z) and lowercase (a–z) letters, digits (0–9), punctuation marks, and control
characters.
● Control characters (0–31) are non-printable and used for device control, e.g., Carriage Return, Line Feed,
Tab, Backspace.
● Simple, compact, and fast to process — ideal for English-language computing.
ASCII Table (Important Characters)
Character Decimal Code Binary (7-bit) Hex
Space 32 0100000 20
0 48 0110000 30
9 57 0111001 39
A 65 1000001 41
M 77 1001101 4D
Z 90 1011010 5A
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Class XI Computer Science (083) — Encoding Schemes
Character Decimal Code Binary (7-bit) Hex
a 97 1100001 61
z 122 1111010 7A
Line Feed (\n) 10 0001010 0A
Carriage Return 13 0001101 0D
3. ISCII (Indian Script Code for Information Interchange)
Definition
ISCII is an 8-bit character encoding standard developed in India for representing characters of Indian scripts such
as Devanagari, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi, and others. It was developed by the Bureau of Indian
Standards (BIS) and the Department of Electronics, Government of India, during the late 1980s and officially
released in 1991.
Features
● 8-bit encoding — total 256 code points, lower 128 = ASCII, upper 128 = Indian scripts.
● Codes 128–255 represent vowels, consonants, and modifiers of Indian scripts
● Later became the basis for allocating Unicode code points to Indian scripts (Unicode's Devanagari block
closely follows ISCII order).
Languages Supported
ISCII supports 10 major Indian scripts, including:
Script Used For
Devanagari Hindi, Marathi, Sanskrit, Nepali
Bengali Bengali, Assamese
Gujarati Gujarati
Gurmukhi Punjabi
Tamil Tamil
Telugu Telugu
Kannada Kannada
Malayalam Malayalam
Odia Odia
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Class XI Computer Science (083) — Encoding Schemes
4. Unicode
Definition
Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that aims to represent every character of every writing
system in the world — including English, Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, mathematical symbols, currency signs, and
emojis — using a single, consistent standard.
Unicode Code Points
Each character in Unicode is assigned a unique number called a code point, written in the format U+XXXX
(hexadecimal). This code point is independent of how the character is actually stored in memory (that depends
on the UTF used). Can be implemented using different encoding formats (UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32) depending on
storage/efficiency needs.
Character Description Unicode Code Point
A Latin capital letter A U+0041
अ Devanagari letter A (Hindi) U+0905
₹ Indian Rupee symbol U+20B9
€ Euro symbol U+20AC
$ Dollar symbol U+0024
� Smiling face emoji U+1F60A
क Devanagari letter KA U+0915
� REMEMBER
Unicode does not by itself decide HOW characters are stored in bytes — that job is
done by 'Unicode Transformation Formats' like UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32.
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Class XI Computer Science (083) — Encoding Schemes
5. Comparison Tables
ASCII vs ISCII vs Unicode
Feature ASCII ISCII Unicode
American Standard Code for Indian Script Code for Universal Character Encoding
Full Form
Information Interchange Information Interchange Standard
Bits Used 7-bit 8-bit Variable (via UTF-8/16/32)
Total Characters 128 256 1,40,000+
Almost all world languages &
Language Support English only 10 Indian scripts (+ ASCII)
symbols
Unicode Consortium, 1991–
Developed By ANSI (USA), 1963 BIS, Govt. of India, 1991
present
Emoji/Currency
No No Yes (₹, €, etc.)
Support
Legacy systems,
Current Usage Mostly replaced by Unicode Universally used today
programming basics
UTF-8 vs UTF-32
Feature UTF-8 UTF-32
Length Type Variable-length (1–4 bytes) Fixed-length (always 4 bytes)
Storage Efficiency High for English/Latin text Uses more storage always
Not directly compatible with ASCII byte-for-
Backward Compatibility Fully compatible with ASCII (1 byte)
byte
Processing Speed Slightly complex to index (variable size) Simple/fast indexing (fixed size)
Common Use Web pages, emails, most modern software Internal text processing, some APIs
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Class XI Computer Science (083) — Encoding Schemes
Advantages & Disadvantages at a Glance
Encoding Advantages Disadvantages
ASCII Simple, fast, universally supported, small size Only 128 characters; English only
Extended ASCII 256 characters; some extra symbols Inconsistent code pages; still limited
ISCII Supports Indian scripts; ASCII-compatible Only 256 characters; limited global use
Universal + ASCII-compatible + space- Variable length makes some processing
Unicode (UTF-8)
efficient complex
Unicode (UTF-32) Simple fixed-size processing High memory usage
6. Real-life Examples and Applications
Scenario Encoding Involved Explanation
Typing an English essay in English letters map directly to ASCII codes, stored
ASCII / UTF-8
Notepad efficiently in UTF-8
Typing a message in Hindi on Devanagari characters (like अ, क) need Unicode
Unicode (UTF-8)
WhatsApp code points beyond ASCII range
Displaying price tags with ₹ ₹ (U+20B9) is a Unicode character not present in
Unicode (UTF-8, 3 bytes)
symbol plain ASCII
Emojis lie in the Supplementary Multilingual Plane
Sending emojis in a text message Unicode (UTF-8, 4 bytes)
of Unicode
Old government Hindi typing Used ISCII standard before Unicode became
ISCII
software (1990s) widespread
Web pages with multiple HTML pages declare charset="UTF-8" to support
Unicode (usually UTF-8)
languages global scripts
Programming variable names in
Unicode Python 3 strings are Unicode by default
Python
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