multi-byte encoding

noun

UK /ˌmʌlti baɪt ɪnˈkəʊdɪŋ/

US /ˌmʌlti baɪt ɪnˈkoʊdɪŋ/

A way for computers to store letters and symbols using more than one byte for each one.

The app uses multi-byte encoding so it can display Chinese characters correctly.

SYNONYMS

multibyte character encoding variable-width encoding wide character encoding multibyte charset

RELATED WORDS

UTF-8 Unicode byte character set encoding

OTHER MEANINGS

2. A character encoding scheme in which some characters take up two or more bytes.

Shift-JIS is a multi-byte encoding used for Japanese text.

3. The process of converting text into a sequence of bytes where a single character may span several bytes.

Multi-byte encoding lets one file hold both English and Arabic text.

4. A data format that uses multiple bytes to represent a single symbol in a computer system.

The database was switched to multi-byte encoding to support emoji.