Character Encoding — A-Level Computer Science Revision
Revise Character Encoding for A-Level Computer Science. Step-by-step explanation, worked examples, common mistakes and exam-style practice aligned to AQA, Edexcel and OCR.
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Go to Data CompressionWhat is Character Encoding?
Character encoding is a system that assigns a unique numerical value to each character. This allows computers to store and transmit text. The most common character encodings are ASCII and Unicode.
Board notes: Covered by AQA, Edexcel, and OCR. Students should understand the need for character encoding and be familiar with ASCII and Unicode.
Step-by-step explanationWorked example
The character 'A' is represented by the decimal value 65 in ASCII. In binary, this is 01000001. The character 'a' is 97 (01100001). This is why 'a' comes after 'A' when sorting strings.
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Common mistakes
- 1Confusing characters with their encoded representations.
- 2Not understanding the difference between ASCII and Unicode.
- 3Thinking that Unicode is a 16-bit encoding (it is a variable-width encoding).
Character Encoding exam questions
Exam-style questions for Character Encoding with mark-scheme style solutions and timing practice. Aligned to AQA, Edexcel and OCR specifications.
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Step-by-step method
Step-by-step explanation
4 steps · Worked method for Character Encoding
Core concept
Character encoding is a system that assigns a unique numerical value to each character. This allows computers to store and transmit text. The most common character encodings are ASCII and Unicode.
Frequently asked questions
What is the advantage of Unicode over ASCII?
ASCII can only represent 128 characters, which is enough for English but not for other languages. Unicode can represent over 140,000 characters, covering almost all of the world's writing systems.
What is UTF-8?
UTF-8 is a variable-width character encoding that is backward-compatible with ASCII. It is the most common character encoding on the World Wide Web.