Dart UTF-16

Dart is a statically typed, object-oriented programming language that is used to build web and mobile applications. One of the key features of Dart is its support for Unicode, including the UTF-16 character encoding format. In this post, we will explore what UTF-16 is and how it is used in Dart.

What is UTF-16?

UTF-16 is a variable-length character encoding format that is used to represent Unicode characters. It can encode any of the Unicode characters, including those that require more than 16 bits of data. UTF-16 uses one or more 16-bit code units to represent each character, depending on the character's Unicode value.

Using UTF-16 in Dart

Dart natively supports UTF-16, which means that you can use it to represent any Unicode character in your code. In fact, string literals in Dart are encoded using UTF-16. For example, the following Dart code creates a string containing a Euro symbol:

String euro = '€';

In this example, the Euro symbol is encoded using a single UTF-16 code unit.

Dart also provides built-in libraries for working with UTF-16 data. For example, the dart:convert library includes classes for encoding and decoding UTF-16 data. The UTF16Encoder class can be used to encode strings into UTF-16 format, like so:

import 'dart:convert';

main() {
  String euro = '€';
  List<int> utf16CodeUnits = utf16.encode(euro);
}

In this example, the utf16.encode method is used to encode the Euro symbol into a list of UTF-16 code units.

Conclusion

Dart's support for UTF-16 is an important feature for developers who need to work with Unicode data. By providing native support for UTF-16, Dart makes it easy to represent, encode, and decode data that includes Unicode characters. Whether you are building web or mobile applications, Dart's UTF-16 encoding capabilities can help you write code that is more flexible and powerful.