A precomposed character (alternatively composite character or decomposable character) is a Unicode entity that can be defined as a combination of two or more other characters. A precomposed character may typically represent a letter with a diacritical mark, such as é (Latin small letter e with acute accent). Technically, é (U+00E9) is a character that can be decomposed into an equivalent string of the base letter e (U+0065) and combining acute accent (U+0301). Similarly, ligatures are precompositions of their constituent letters or graphemes.
Precomposed characters are the legacy solution for representing many special letters in various character sets. In Unicode they are included primarily to aid computer systems with incomplete Unicode support, where equivalent decomposed characters may render incorrectly.
Read more about Precomposed Character: Comparing Precomposed and Decomposed Characters, Chinese Characters, See Also, Sources
Famous quotes containing the word character:
“There is no character, howsoever good and fine, but it can be destroyed by ridicule, howsoever poor and witless. Observe the ass, for instance: his character is about perfect, he is the choicest spirit among all the humbler animals, yet see what ridicule has brought him to. Instead of feeling complimented when we are called an ass, we are left in doubt.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)