Unicode 4.0

Mark DavisPresident, The Unicode Consortium

Schedule2003, April: UCD/UAXes

Final data files available Implementation can proceed

2003: September: Book Available

New Characters: 1,228 Modern Scripts

(additions to) Indic, Khmer, Latin, Greek, Arabic, Syriac

(minority scripts) Limbu, Tai Le, Osmanya Historic Scripts

Linear B, Cypriot, Ugaritic, Shavian, Aegean Numbers

Symbols Monograms, digrams, tetragrams, other symbols modifier & combining characters

New Characters (cont.)Special Characters

additional variation selectors (for future CJK variants), double-diacritics for dictionary use

For a detailed list, see Derived Age in the UCD 4.0, and the beta Charts.

Character repertoire corresponds to ISO/IEC 10646:2003.

Conformance Substantially improved specification of

conformance requirements Incorporated UTR #17: Character Encoding Model,

clearly separating encoding forms and encoding schemes

Tightened definitions of UTF-8, UTF-16, UTF-32 Separate definition of Unicode String

Clarified conformance status of Unicode Standard Annexes

Formal definitions of properties & algorithms Provisional properties: draft, NRFPT

UTF vs Unicode String UTF

Unique representation for Code Point All else illegal

C0 80 D800 0061

Unicode String Sequence of code units Internal Processing, not interchange Not necessarily valid UTF

C0 A0 D800 0061

Conformance (cont.) Formalized policies for stability of the

standard Clarification of semantics of important

characters, including BOM Revised scope of enclosing combining marks Revised semantics of ZWJ for cursive scripts Normalization Corrections

U+2F868; U+2F874; U+2F91F; U+2F95F; U+2F9BF

Textual Clarifications Major changes to Chapters 2, 3, 6, 14 and 15 Definitive terminology for code points:

graphic, format, control, private-use = assigned characters

surrogate, noncharacter, reserved not characters

Substantial improvements to many character block descriptions, especially Indic

Programming language identifiers Now backwards-compatible

Once a Unicode identifier, Always a Unicode identifier

Alternate definition for complete stability Fix set of allowed characters Allow all reserved code points + Complete stability - “Odd” characters

Case mappings now normative (but tailorable) Clearer definition of string functions:

isUpper(), isLower(), isTitle(), isFold() toUpper(), toLower(), toTitle(), toFold()

Definition of titlecase uses word boundaries Note that the Turkic mappings do not

maintain canonical equivalence, without additional processing.

UAX #9: The Bidirectional Algorithm canonically equivalence now preserved

data change, not algorithm shaping is done after reordering

but not across directional boundariesclarifications of:

ZWJ, ZWNJ intermediate level processing

UAX #14: Line Breaking Properties Negative numbers and dates with hyphens will

not break across lines Word-Joiner will link any characters (except

hard line breaks) Behavior of soft hyphen clarified

marks opportunity for breaking, not specific graphic appearance.

Rules for GL relaxed SP and ZW override GL

New Property Values: NL, WJ

UAX #15: Unicode Normalization Forms Description of Stable Code Points. Notation NFC(x) and isNFC(x), in Notation. Added pointer to UTN #5 Canonical

Equivalences in Applications Rewrote Annex 12: Corrigenda for clarity, and

to describe the use of Normalization Corrections.

Added Annex 13: Canonical Equivalence.

UAX #29: Text Boundaries New: extracted from 3.0, but

significantly revisedDefault definitionsWord, sentence: tailoring expectedGrapheme cluster (“user character”)

Hangul Syllable or other Base plus (optionally) any number of NSMs

No Sub. ChangesUAX #11: East Asian WidthUAX #24: Script Names

except now UAX!

Superseded UAXes Incorporated into and thus superseded

by Unicode Version 4.0: UAX #13: Unicode Newline Guidelines UAX #19: UTF-32 UAX #21: Case Mappings UAX #27: Unicode 3.1 UAX #28: Unicode 3.2

Unicode Character Database Documentation coalesced into UCD.html. New properties and values

Hangul_Syllable_Type, Unicode_Radical_Stroke CJK numeric values added. PropertyValueAliases adds block names

UCD fallback props more precisely defined. for code points not explicitly in data files

New Characters Appropriate properties assigned

UCD4.0 (cont.) Modifier letters

The general category of 02B9..02BA, 02C6..02CF changed to general category Lm.

Khmer Two Khmer characters are deprecated; four others

strongly discouraged. Decimal Digits

Numeric_Type=decimal digit now aligned with General_Category=Nd

Braille Added script value

UCD4.0 (cont. 2) Case Mapping

Fixed for Turkish, Lithuanian Default Ignorables

Hangul Filler characters Soft-Hyphen, CGJ, ZWS Arabic End of Ayah and Syriac Abbreviation Mark

no longer DI, shaping classes fixed. Grapheme_Extend

removes halfwidth katakana marks, most Mc (except as needed for canonical equivalence)

Related Items UTS #10: Unicode Collation Algorithm

Not part of Unicode 4.0, but closely related From 4.0 on, to be sync'ed in repertoire and version

with the Unicode Standard. UTS #6: SCSU

Added suitability for XML Draft UTS #18: Unicode Regular Expressions

Draft as UTS with conformance requirements Draft UTR #23: Character Properties

Draft Character Property Model

Q& A

Background Slides

Unicode 3.2 (March, 2002) New Characters: 1,016 Symbols

Large collection of mathematical symbols, especially targeted at MathML, recycling symbols, ornamental brackets.

Special Characters combining grapheme joiner, word joiner, invisible

operators for math, variation selectors Modern Scripts

minority scripts of the Philippines

Conformance Eliminates irregular UTF-8 Defines variation sequences Replaces ZWNBSP with Word Joiner Clarifies scope of combining marks

(further revised in 4.0) Clarifications of conjoining jamo

behavior, hangul syllable structure, decomposables,

Textual Clarifications Combined vowels in Khmer, characters

discouraged in Khmer Use of dingbats

Unicode Standard Annexes UAX #21: Case Mappings (was UTR)

Unicode Character Database New properties:

IDS_Binary_Operator, IDS_Trinary_Operator, Radical, Unified_Ideograph,

Default_Ignorable_Code_Point, Deprecated Soft_Dotted, Logical_Order_Exception

Grapheme_Base, Grapheme_Extend,Grapheme_Link DerivedAge Normalization Corrections Added Property & Property Value Aliases Adds StandardizedVariants.html

Related Items UTS #10: Unicode Collation Algorithm

Ignorable character handling, dual versioning, more conditions on well-formed weights, separate weights for CJK and unassigned characters, non-characters

Note: base version still U3.1 UTR #26: CESU-8 Unicode Technical Notes Updated Character Encoding Stability Policy Added Public Review process Updated Glossary

Unicode 3.1 (March, 2001) New Characters: 44,946

First supplementaries encoded! Modern scripts

CJK Ideographs (now totaling 71,039) Historic scripts

Old Italic, Gothic, Deseret, Byzantine Musical Symbols

Symbols Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols, (Western)

Musical Symbols

Conformance Non-shortest-form UTF-8 excluded Clarification of the stability of the standard,

code units vs. code points, non-characters, normative properties, informative properties, normative references

Revisions of guidelines: wchar_t, unassigned code points, identifiers

Major revision of Georgian Use of ZWNJ and ZWJ for ligatures Language tag characters encoded

but discouraged

Unicode Standard Annexes UAX #19: UTF-32

Unicode Character Database Major revision of PropList properties:

White_Space, Bidi_Control, Join_Control, Hex_Digit

Alphabetic, Ideographic, Lowercase, Uppercase ID_Start, ID_Continue, XID_Start, XID_Continue Noncharacter_Code_Point

Quotation_Mark, Terminal_Punctuation, Math, Dash, Hyphen, Diacritic, Extender

New properties: Case folding, Scripts Added DerivedProperties, NormalizationTest

Related Items Documented Character Encoding Stability Policy UTS #10: Unicode Collation Algorithm

Merged data files; updated to base version 3.1 UTR #18: Unicode Regular Expression Guidelin

es

UTR #20: Unicode in XML and other Markup Languages

UTR #22: Character Mapping Tables UTR #24: Script Names