Terms for characters

The following terms describe characters:

  • A single-byte character is one whose numeric value is expressible in one byte
  • A double-byte character is one whose numeric value is expressible in two bytes
  • A triple-byte character is one whose numeric value is expressible in three bytes
  • An n-byte character is one whose numeric value is expressible in exactly n bytes
  • A multi-byte character is one whose numeric value is not expressible in a single byte
Note: A double-byte code page can contain single-byte characters and double-byte characters. A triple-byte code page can contain single-byte characters, double-byte characters, and triple-byte characters, and so on.