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Date: Fri, 2 May 2014 19:08:24 +1000
Subject: Re: Unicode 7
From: Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com>
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Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.python:70856

On Fri, May 2, 2014 at 6:45 PM, Steven D'Aprano
<steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
>> - unicode 'number-boxes' (what are these called?)
>
> They are missing character glyphs, and they have nothing to do with
> Unicode. They are due to deficiencies in the text font you are using.
>
> Admittedly with Unicode's 0x10FFFF possible characters (actually more,
> since a single code point can have multiple glyphs) it isn't surprising
> that most font designers have neither the time, skill or desire to create
> a glyph for every single code point. But then the same applies even for
> more restrictive 8-bit encodings -- sometimes font designers don't even
> bother providing glyphs for *ASCII* characters.
>
> (E.g. they may only provide glyphs for uppercase A...Z, not lowercase.)

This is another area where Unicode has given us "a great improvement
over the old method of giving satisfaction". Back in the 1990s on
OS/2, DOS, and Windows, a missing glyph might be (a) blank, (b) a
simple square with no information, or (c) copied from some other font
(common with dingbats fonts). With Unicode, the standard is to show a
little box *with the hex digits in it*. Granted, those boxes are a LOT
more readable for BMP characters than SMP (unless your text is huge,
six digits in the space of one character will make them pretty tiny),
and a "Unicode" font will generally include all (or at least most) of
the BMP, but it's still better than having no information at all.

ChrisA