I believe I can squeeze 3 8-bit ascii characters into a single 20-bit unicode character
No, you can't.
- ASCII is 7 bit, not 8 bit.
- Unicode defines code points from 0 to 0x10FFFF, i.e. 0x110000 code points. You need at least 21 bit for that (ln2(0x110000) = 20.087...), not 20 bit. Depending on the selected Unicode Transformation Format, you need up to 32 bit to encode those code points (see UTF-8 and UTF-16). Especially note that not all 32-bit combinations are valid Unicode.
- Three 7-bit characters need 21 bits, not 20 bits.
- Three 8-bit characters need 24 bits, not 20 bits.
If you want to store more bits in a limited storage area than that storage area allows, you need compression, either lossy or lossless. Just shifting bits around won't help.
Alexander
--
Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)
-
Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
-
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big>
<blockquote> <br /> <dd>
<dl> <dt> <em> <font>
<h1> <h2> <h3> <h4>
<h5> <h6> <hr /> <i>
<li> <nbsp> <ol> <p>
<small> <strike> <strong>
<sub> <sup> <table>
<td> <th> <tr> <tt>
<u> <ul>
-
Snippets of code should be wrapped in
<code> tags not
<pre> tags. In fact, <pre>
tags should generally be avoided. If they must
be used, extreme care should be
taken to ensure that their contents do not
have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent
horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor
intervention).
-
Want more info? How to link
or How to display code and escape characters
are good places to start.
|