why UNICODE

[Former Member]

Of the "5" non-neumeric types , the "4" types C,N,D,T, are character types. Fields with these types are known as character fields. Each position in one of these fields takes up enough space for the code of one character. Currently , ABAP ONLY WORKS WITH SINGLE -BYTE CODES. However adaptation to unicode is underway where each character will occupy "2" to "4" bytes

Please could anyone explain the advantage of such a process?

[Former Member]

Hi,

Unicode simplifies data exchange between systems and increases the offering of scripts and languages. A series of Unicode-enabled SAP applications is now available and existing SAP systems can be converted to Unicode.

Computers process and save each character, for example a “B”, as a byte sequence. The characters and byte strings are defined in a code page. The diversity of languages and writing systems means that numerous code pages are required. What’s more, the same character is mapped in different ways depending on the operating system or make of printer. Consequently, there are currently 390 code pages defined in the SAP system in order to support 41 different languages. Multiple, largely redundant code pages make data exchange more difficult and prevent integration.

Technologies based on Unicode do not have this problem. Unicode maps the characters of all the world’s scripts in a standardized form, thereby ensuring smooth communication between different languages and systems. Some 98,000 characters have already been defined in Unicode and space for more than one million characters is available. Using Unicode offers numerous advantages:

Many different languages can be supported more easily than ever before

There is always a risk of data being lost if Unicode is not used

Tight integration with other Unicode-based technologies such as XML, VB, JAVA and .NET is supported.

Since a Unicode system uses only a single code page, the restrictions relating to systems with more than one code page (Multi-Display, Multi-Processing, MDMP) naturally do not apply. Every user can log on in English, for example, and enter any Unicode characters he or she chooses.

Hope this helps you.

regards,

keerthi

[Former Member]

Hi ,

Disadvantages of old standard code pages.

Each covers only a subset of all characters used

Incompatibilities between different codepages

Only restricted data exchange possible

Too many of them

With Unicode.

And languages can be supported easily without the need for new code pages or other new methods

UTF-16 – Unicode Transformation Format, 16 bit encoding

Fixed length, 1 character = 2 bytes (surrogate pairs = 2 + 2 bytes)

Platform-dependent byte order (big/little endian)

2 byte alignment restriction

UTF-8 – Unicode Transformation Format, 8 bit encoding

Variable length, 1 character = 1...4 bytes

Platform independent

no alignment restriction

7 bit US ASCII compatible

With Unicode, you can use multiple languages simultaneously at a single

frontend computer.

Unicode is required for cross-application data exchange without loss of data due

to incompatible character sets. One way to present documents in the World

Wide Web (www) is XML, for example.

Please reward if useful.