26.6.1 Introduction

Unicode assigns a single number to each code element defined by the Standard. Each of these numbers is called a code point and, when referred to in text, is listed in hexadecimal form following the prefix U+. For example, the code point U+0041 is the hexadecimal number 0041 (equal to the decimal number 65); it represents the character A in the Unicode Standard.

Each character is also assigned a unique name that specifies it and no other. For example, U+0041 is assigned the character name LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A. U+0A1B is assigned the character name GURMUKHI LETTER CHA. These Unicode names are identical to the ISO/IEC 10646 names for the same characters.

For a general overview of the Unicode Standard see⁶:

For the complete reference of Unicode code points we should inspect the Unicode Characters Database⁷:

which is partly and introductorily documented by⁸:

the same directory on the unicode.org site offers other documents on the interpretation of the database.

For an explanation of ASCII coding, see⁹: