character encoding
nounUK /ˈkær.ək.tə ɪnˌkəʊ.dɪŋ/
US /ˈker.ək.tɚ ɪnˌkoʊ.dɪŋ/
A character encoding is a set of rules that tells a computer how to turn letters and symbols into numbers it can store.
The web page looked strange because the browser used the wrong character encoding.
OTHER MEANINGS
2. The process of assigning a numeric code to each character in a set.
Character encoding happens before the text is saved to the file.
3. A specific standard, such as UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1, that defines how characters map to bytes.
Make sure the server sends the correct character encoding in the HTTP header.
4. The way a program interprets raw bytes as readable text.
Changing the character encoding fixed the garbled symbols in the document.