UTF-16
Technology & Computing abbreviation · Computer
| Stands for | Unicode Transformation Format, 16-bit |
|---|---|
| Categories | Technology & Computing |
UTF-16 stands for Unicode Transformation Format, 16-bit, a computer abbreviation.
Unicode encoding that uses one or two 16-bit units per character, with "surrogate pairs" for emoji and rarer scripts. Windows, Java and JavaScript use it internally for strings, although files on disk are more often UTF-8.
Example: Windows APIs expect UTF-16 strings, so the program converts its UTF-8 input before calling them.
Usage notes
UTF-16 descends from UCS-2, an early fixed-width encoding that assumed 65,536 characters would be enough for every script. Because byte order matters, files may begin with a byte order mark and are labeled UTF-16LE or UTF-16BE. A common bug is measuring string length in 16-bit units, which makes many emoji count as two characters.
Related abbreviations
More computer abbreviations
- sudo – Superuser do
- TTY – Teletypewriter (Unix terminal)
- TUI – Text-based user interface
- UAC – User Account Control
- UEFI – Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
- UI – User interface
- UTF-8 – Unicode Transformation Format, 8-bit
- UX – User experience
- WIMP – Windows, icons, menus, pointer
- WinPE – Windows Preinstallation Environment
- WinRE – Windows Recovery Environment
- WPM – Words per minute