big5(5) 							File Formats Manual							   big5(5)

NAME

       big5 - A character encoding system (codeset) for Traditional Chinese

DESCRIPTION

       The  big5  codeset is one of several codesets that support the Traditional Chinese language.  This codeset includes the following character
       sets: ASCII Big-5

       The big5 codeset uses a combination of single-byte data and two-byte data to represent ASCII characters, symbols, and  Chinese  ideographic
       characters.

   ASCII Characters
       All ASCII characters are represented in the form of single-byte, 7-bit data in the big5 codeset; that is, the most significant bit (MSB) of
       a byte that represents an ASCII character is always set off.  For more information, see ascii(5).

   Big-5 Character Groups
       The Big-5 character set defines the following character groups: Special symbols (408) Level 1 characters (5401) Level 2	characters  (7652)
       Level 1 user-defined space (785) Level 2 user-defined space (2983) Level 3 user-defined space (2041)

   Code Values for Big-5 Characters
       Each  Big-5  character is represented by a two-byte code that compiles according to the Big-5 standard. The MSB of the first byte is always
       set on while that of the second byte can be on or off. Code ranges for characters in the different character groups are as follows: Special
       symbols:  A140  to  A3BF Level 1 characters: A440 to C67E Level 2 characters: C940 to F9D5 Level 1 user-defined space: FA40 to FEFE Level 2
       user-defined space: 8E40 to A0FE Level 3 user-defined space: 8140 to 8DFE

	      In this space, the valid code range for the first byte is 81 to FE, while that for the second byte is 40 to 7E and A1 to FE.

   Codeset Conversion
       The following codeset converter pairs are available for converting Traditional Chinese characters between big5 and other encoding  formats.
       Refer to iconv_intro(5) for an introduction to codeset conversion. For more information about the other codeset for which big5 is the input
       or output, see the reference page specified in the list item.  dechanyu_big5, big5_dechanyu

	      Converting from and to DEC Hanyu: dechanyu(5) dechanzi_big5, big5_dechanzi

	      Converting from and to DEC Hanzi: dechanzi(5) eucTW_big5, big5_eucTW

	      Converting from and to Taiwanese Extended UNIX Code: eucTW(5) sbig5_big5, big5_sbig5

	      Converting from and to Shift Big-5: sbig5(5) telecode_big5, big5_telecode

	      Converting from and to Telecode: telecode(5) UCS-2_big5, big5_UCS-2

	      Converting from and to UCS-2: Unicode(5) UCS-4_big5, big5_UCS-4

	      Converting from and to UCS-4: Unicode(5) UTF-8_big5, big5_UTF-8

	      Converting from and to UTF-8: Unicode(5)

									  Note

       The big5 encoding format is identical to the encoding format used in PC code pages that support Traditional Chinese. Therefore, you can use
       codeset	converters  that convert between big5 and UCS-2, UCS-4, or UTF-8 to convert Traditional Chinese data between PC code-page and Uni-
       code encoding formats. Refer to code_page(5) for a discussion of how the operating system supports PC code pages.

   Fonts for Big-5 Characters
       The operating system supports Big-5 code by internally converting characters to DEC Hanyu. Therefore, DEC Hanyu fonts are  used	for  Big-5
       characters.  Both display and printer fonts are provided for DEC Hanyu and these are listed in the dechanyu(5) reference page.

       For general information about printer support for and codeset conversion of Asian text, refer to i18n_printing(5).

SEE ALSO

       Commands: locale(1)

       Others:	ascii(5),  Chinese(5),	code_page(5), dechanyu(5), dechanzi(5), eucTW(5), GBK(5), i18n_intro(5), i18n_printing(5), iconv_intro(5),
       l10n_intro(5), sbig5(5), telecode(5), Unicode(5)

																	   big5(5)