ISO/IEC  WG2 - Standards

2009-11-16: home | standards | projects | meetings | contacts


ISO/IEC 10646

Abstract

ISO/IEC 10646:2003 specifies the Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS). It is applicable to the representation, transmission, interchange, processing, storage, input and presentation of the written form of the languages of the world as well as additional symbols.

ISO/IEC 10646:2003

The UCS is a coding system different from that specified in ISO/IEC 2022. A graphic character will be assigned only one code position in ISO/IEC 10646:2003, located either in the BMP or in one of the supplementary planes.

NOTE - The Unicode Standard, Version 5.0 includes a set of characters, names, and coded representations that are identical with those in ISO/IEC 10646:2003. It additionally provides details of character properties, processing algorithms, and definitions that are useful to implementers. Version 5.0 strengthens Unicode support for worldwide communication, software availability, and publishing.

By defining a consistent way of encoding multilingual text ISO/IEC 10646:2003 enables the exchange of data internationally. The information technology industry gains data stability, greater global interoperability and data interchange. ISO/IEC 10646:2003 has been widely adopted in new Internet and W3C protocols and mark up languages such as XML and HTML, and implemented in modern operating systems and computer programming languages. This edition covers over 100,000 characters from the world's scripts.

Approved international standards and other specifications that are now freely available include:  

ISO/IEC 10646:2003(E)
ISO/CEI 10646:2003(F) 

Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS)
Technologies de l'information -- Jeu universel de caractères codés sur plusieurs octets (JUC)

Revision information

The ISO/IEC 10646:2003 edition has the following amendments since its publication which are also freely available:

ISO/IEC 10646:2003/Amd.1:2005

Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Amendment 1: Glagolitic, Coptic, Georgian and other characters

ISO/IEC 10646:2003/Amd.2:2006

Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Amendment 2: N'Ko, Phags-pa, Phoenician and other characters

ISO/IEC 10646:2003/Amd.3:2008

Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Amendment 3: Lepcha, Ol Chiki, Saurashtra, Vai and other characters

ISO/IEC 10646:2003/Amd.4:2008

Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Amendment 4: Cham, Game Tiles, and other characters

ISO/IEC 10646:2003/Amd.5:2008

Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Amendment 5: Tai Tham, Tai Viet, Avestan, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, CJK Unified Ideographs Extension C, and other characters

ISO/IEC 10646:2003/Amd 6:2009
Published 2009-10-13

Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Amendment 6: Javanese, Lisu, Meetei Mayek, Samaritan, Canadian Aboriginal Syllabic  and other characters

There are two amendments for ISO/IEC 10646:2003 edition and an FCD that are in progress in SC2:

ISO/IEC 10646: 2003/FDAM 7

Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Amendment 7: Mandaic, Batak, Brahmi and other characters (WG2 N3718)

ISO/IEC 10646: 2003/FPDAM8 Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- AMENDMENT 8: Additional symbols, Bamum supplement, CJK Unified Ideographs Extension D, Alchemical symbols, Ethiopic Extended-A, Emoji Symbols and other characters [WG2 N3723]
ISO/IEC 10646 2nd edition FCD 2nd edition of ISO/IEC 10646: 2010.  It includes all the amendments, 1-8, of the 1st edition of ISO/IEC 10646:2003

Previous Editions

Two previous editions of ISO/IEC 10646 were published earlier but has been withdrawn since the publication of ISO/IEC 10646:2003 edition:

1.     The ISO/IEC 10646-1 standard "Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) - Part 1: Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP)", second edition was published March 2000.

2.     The first edition of IS 10646-1 was published in May 1993.

Here is a list of the earlier withdrawn editions specific to ISO/IEC 10646 and their amendments/corrigenda:

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993
Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Part 1: Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 1:1996
Transformation Format for 16 planes of group 00 (UTF-16)

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Cor 1:1996

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 2:1996
UCS Transformation Format 8 (UTF-8)

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Cor 2:1998

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 3:1996

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 4:1996

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 5:1998
Hangul syllables

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 6:1997
Tibetan

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 7:1997
33 additional characters

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 8:1997

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 9:1997
Identifiers for characters

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 10:1998
Ethiopic

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 11:1998
Unified Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 12:1998
Cherokee

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 13:1998
CJK unified ideographs with supplementary sources

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 16:1998
Braille patterns

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 17:1999
CJK Unified Ideographs Extension A

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 18:1999
Symbols and other characters

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 19:1998
Runic

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 20:1998
Ogham

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 21:1999
Sinhala

ISO/IEC 10646-1:1993/Amd 23:1999
Bopomofo Extended and others characters

ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000
Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Part 1: Architecture and Basic Multilingual Plane

ISO/IEC 10646-2:2001
Information technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) -- Part 2: Supplementary Planes

ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000/Amd 1:2002
Mathematical symbols and other characters

ISO/IEC TR 15285

WG2 has in cooperation with SC18 developed a technical report (freely available): ISO/IEC TR 15285 - An operational model for characters and glyphs.


2009-11-16: home | standards | projects | meetings | contacts