How deeply does Modern C cover UTF-8?

Defines UTF-8 among Unicode formats and shows C11 literal syntax, but does not detail its byte encoding.

UTF-8

As explained in Modern C

UTF-8 is a Unicode Transformation Format that encodes code points as sequences of 8-bit code units.

A source file, a text file, and a terminal may not use the same multibyte encoding. Text that works in one environment can therefore cause trouble when moved to another. UTF-8 is one of Unicode’s three widely used transformation formats; the others are UTF-16 and UTF-32. section 14.3

Requesting UTF-8 in C

Since C11, u8"text" is a UTF-8 string literal with type char[]. Compare u"text" and U"text", whose types are char16_t[] and char32_t[]. The u8 prefix is useful when an encoding must be ensured, for example in network communication. section 14.3

TAKEAWAY: A modern platform’s ordinary multibyte encoding may already be UTF-8, but do not assume every environment uses it. The u8 prefix states the intended encoding without relying on the locale. section 14.3

How Modern C covers it

liveBook manning.com

Read Modern C on liveBook Get the book at manning.com

Also explained in

liveBook manning.com

PostgreSQL Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemUTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding that represents Unicode code points as sequences of one to four bytes.
liveBook manning.com

Python Workout: 50 ten-minute exercisesUTF-8 is a variable-width Unicode character encoding that represents characters using one to four eight-bit code units.
liveBook manning.com

Learn Go with Pocket-Sized ProjectsUTF-8 is a variable-width Unicode encoding that represents characters as sequences of one to four bytes.
liveBook manning.com

100 Go Mistakes and How to Avoid ThemUTF-8 is a variable-width Unicode character encoding in which characters are represented by sequences of one to four bytes.
liveBook manning.com

Julia as a Second LanguageUTF-8 is a variable-width Unicode encoding that represents code points using one to four bytes and is ASCII-compatible for one-byte characters.
liveBook manning.com

Modern C, Third EditionUTF-8 is a variable-length Unicode encoding that represents each code point as a sequence of one to four bytes.
liveBook manning.com

Data Analysis with LLMsUTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding standard that represents Unicode text using one to four bytes per character and preserves ASCII encoding for the first 128 characters.
liveBook manning.com

Go in Practice, Second EditionUTF-8 is a variable-width Unicode character encoding that represents Unicode text as sequences of bytes.
liveBook manning.com

The Quick Python Book, Fourth EditionUTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding that represents Unicode text while preserving the standard ASCII byte representations.
liveBook manning.com

Grokking Algorithms, Second EditionUTF-8 is a variable-length character encoding for representing Unicode text using one to four bytes per character.

Compare how 11 books explain UTF-8 →

Related concepts

stringused by · A string is a programming-language value representing an ordered sequence of characters or character units as text.
encodingkind of · Encoding is the transformation of information into a representation defined by a scheme for storage, processing, transmission, or interpretation.
ASCIIcontrasts with · ASCII is a 7-bit character-encoding standard that assigns numeric codes to 128 basic Latin characters, symbols, punctuation marks, digits, and control characters.
Unicodeuses · Unicode is a standard that assigns code points and properties to characters and defines rules for representing and processing text across writing systems.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Modern C. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.