The following terms describe bytes:

  • A lead byte is the first byte of a multi-byte character
  • A trail byte is any byte of a multi-byte character except the first

The following figure shows four characters from a double-byte code page.

Figure 1. Four characters from a double-byte code page


The following figure shows three characters from a UTF-8 code page. Note that Character 4 is a Unicode supplementary character.

Figure 2. Three characters from a UTF-8 code page