UTF-16 LE
UnicodeLittle-endian UTF-16. Used internally by Windows, Java, and .NET. Variable-width: 2 bytes for BMP characters, 4 bytes (surrogate pairs) for supplementary characters.
- IANA Name
- UTF-16LE
- Byte Width
- 2–4 bytes
- BOM
- FF FE
- Introduced
- 1996
UTF-8
UnicodeThe dominant encoding for the web. Variable-width (1–4 bytes). Fully backwards-compatible with ASCII. The default encoding for HTML5, JSON, and most modern protocols.
- IANA Name
- UTF-8
- Byte Width
- 1–4 bytes
- BOM
- EF BB BF
- Introduced
- 1993
Both UTF-16 LE and UTF-8 are Unicode encodings — they represent the same 138,571 characters. The difference is in how the bytes are arranged. The table below shows how the first 128 codepoints (the ASCII range) are encoded in each.
ASCII Range (U+0000–U+007F)
| Char | Codepoint | UTF-16 LE | UTF-8 | Same? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U+0000 | 00 00 | 00 | ≠ | |
| U+0001 | 01 00 | 01 | ≠ | |
| U+0002 | 02 00 | 02 | ≠ | |
| U+0003 | 03 00 | 03 | ≠ | |
| U+0004 | 04 00 | 04 | ≠ | |
| U+0005 | 05 00 | 05 | ≠ | |
| U+0006 | 06 00 | 06 | ≠ | |
| U+0007 | 07 00 | 07 | ≠ | |
| U+0008 | 08 00 | 08 | ≠ | |
| U+0009 | 09 00 | 09 | ≠ | |
| U+000A | 0A 00 | 0A | ≠ | |
| U+000B | 0B 00 | 0B | ≠ | |
| U+000C | 0C 00 | 0C | ≠ | |
| U+000D | 0D 00 | 0D | ≠ | |
| U+000E | 0E 00 | 0E | ≠ | |
| U+000F | 0F 00 | 0F | ≠ | |
| U+0010 | 10 00 | 10 | ≠ | |
| U+0011 | 11 00 | 11 | ≠ | |
| U+0012 | 12 00 | 12 | ≠ | |
| U+0013 | 13 00 | 13 | ≠ | |
| U+0014 | 14 00 | 14 | ≠ | |
| U+0015 | 15 00 | 15 | ≠ | |
| U+0016 | 16 00 | 16 | ≠ | |
| U+0017 | 17 00 | 17 | ≠ | |
| U+0018 | 18 00 | 18 | ≠ | |
| U+0019 | 19 00 | 19 | ≠ | |
| U+001A | 1A 00 | 1A | ≠ | |
| U+001B | 1B 00 | 1B | ≠ | |
| U+001C | 1C 00 | 1C | ≠ | |
| U+001D | 1D 00 | 1D | ≠ | |
| U+001E | 1E 00 | 1E | ≠ | |
| U+001F | 1F 00 | 1F | ≠ | |
| U+0020 | 20 00 | 20 | ≠ | |
| ! | U+0021 | 21 00 | 21 | ≠ |
| " | U+0022 | 22 00 | 22 | ≠ |
| # | U+0023 | 23 00 | 23 | ≠ |
| $ | U+0024 | 24 00 | 24 | ≠ |
| % | U+0025 | 25 00 | 25 | ≠ |
| & | U+0026 | 26 00 | 26 | ≠ |
| ' | U+0027 | 27 00 | 27 | ≠ |
| ( | U+0028 | 28 00 | 28 | ≠ |
| ) | U+0029 | 29 00 | 29 | ≠ |
| * | U+002A | 2A 00 | 2A | ≠ |
| + | U+002B | 2B 00 | 2B | ≠ |
| , | U+002C | 2C 00 | 2C | ≠ |
| - | U+002D | 2D 00 | 2D | ≠ |
| . | U+002E | 2E 00 | 2E | ≠ |
| / | U+002F | 2F 00 | 2F | ≠ |
| 0 | U+0030 | 30 00 | 30 | ≠ |
| 1 | U+0031 | 31 00 | 31 | ≠ |
| 2 | U+0032 | 32 00 | 32 | ≠ |
| 3 | U+0033 | 33 00 | 33 | ≠ |
| 4 | U+0034 | 34 00 | 34 | ≠ |
| 5 | U+0035 | 35 00 | 35 | ≠ |
| 6 | U+0036 | 36 00 | 36 | ≠ |
| 7 | U+0037 | 37 00 | 37 | ≠ |
| 8 | U+0038 | 38 00 | 38 | ≠ |
| 9 | U+0039 | 39 00 | 39 | ≠ |
| : | U+003A | 3A 00 | 3A | ≠ |
| ; | U+003B | 3B 00 | 3B | ≠ |
| < | U+003C | 3C 00 | 3C | ≠ |
| = | U+003D | 3D 00 | 3D | ≠ |
| > | U+003E | 3E 00 | 3E | ≠ |
| ? | U+003F | 3F 00 | 3F | ≠ |
| @ | U+0040 | 40 00 | 40 | ≠ |
| A | U+0041 | 41 00 | 41 | ≠ |
| B | U+0042 | 42 00 | 42 | ≠ |
| C | U+0043 | 43 00 | 43 | ≠ |
| D | U+0044 | 44 00 | 44 | ≠ |
| E | U+0045 | 45 00 | 45 | ≠ |
| F | U+0046 | 46 00 | 46 | ≠ |
| G | U+0047 | 47 00 | 47 | ≠ |
| H | U+0048 | 48 00 | 48 | ≠ |
| I | U+0049 | 49 00 | 49 | ≠ |
| J | U+004A | 4A 00 | 4A | ≠ |
| K | U+004B | 4B 00 | 4B | ≠ |
| L | U+004C | 4C 00 | 4C | ≠ |
| M | U+004D | 4D 00 | 4D | ≠ |
| N | U+004E | 4E 00 | 4E | ≠ |
| O | U+004F | 4F 00 | 4F | ≠ |
| P | U+0050 | 50 00 | 50 | ≠ |
| Q | U+0051 | 51 00 | 51 | ≠ |
| R | U+0052 | 52 00 | 52 | ≠ |
| S | U+0053 | 53 00 | 53 | ≠ |
| T | U+0054 | 54 00 | 54 | ≠ |
| U | U+0055 | 55 00 | 55 | ≠ |
| V | U+0056 | 56 00 | 56 | ≠ |
| W | U+0057 | 57 00 | 57 | ≠ |
| X | U+0058 | 58 00 | 58 | ≠ |
| Y | U+0059 | 59 00 | 59 | ≠ |
| Z | U+005A | 5A 00 | 5A | ≠ |
| [ | U+005B | 5B 00 | 5B | ≠ |
| \ | U+005C | 5C 00 | 5C | ≠ |
| ] | U+005D | 5D 00 | 5D | ≠ |
| ^ | U+005E | 5E 00 | 5E | ≠ |
| _ | U+005F | 5F 00 | 5F | ≠ |
| ` | U+0060 | 60 00 | 60 | ≠ |
| a | U+0061 | 61 00 | 61 | ≠ |
| b | U+0062 | 62 00 | 62 | ≠ |
| c | U+0063 | 63 00 | 63 | ≠ |
| d | U+0064 | 64 00 | 64 | ≠ |
| e | U+0065 | 65 00 | 65 | ≠ |
| f | U+0066 | 66 00 | 66 | ≠ |
| g | U+0067 | 67 00 | 67 | ≠ |
| h | U+0068 | 68 00 | 68 | ≠ |
| i | U+0069 | 69 00 | 69 | ≠ |
| j | U+006A | 6A 00 | 6A | ≠ |
| k | U+006B | 6B 00 | 6B | ≠ |
| l | U+006C | 6C 00 | 6C | ≠ |
| m | U+006D | 6D 00 | 6D | ≠ |
| n | U+006E | 6E 00 | 6E | ≠ |
| o | U+006F | 6F 00 | 6F | ≠ |
| p | U+0070 | 70 00 | 70 | ≠ |
| q | U+0071 | 71 00 | 71 | ≠ |
| r | U+0072 | 72 00 | 72 | ≠ |
| s | U+0073 | 73 00 | 73 | ≠ |
| t | U+0074 | 74 00 | 74 | ≠ |
| u | U+0075 | 75 00 | 75 | ≠ |
| v | U+0076 | 76 00 | 76 | ≠ |
| w | U+0077 | 77 00 | 77 | ≠ |
| x | U+0078 | 78 00 | 78 | ≠ |
| y | U+0079 | 79 00 | 79 | ≠ |
| z | U+007A | 7A 00 | 7A | ≠ |
| { | U+007B | 7B 00 | 7B | ≠ |
| | | U+007C | 7C 00 | 7C | ≠ |
| } | U+007D | 7D 00 | 7D | ≠ |
| ~ | U+007E | 7E 00 | 7E | ≠ |
| U+007F | 7F 00 | 7F | ≠ |
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