UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO 10646

ISO/IEC 10646-1 defines a multi-octet character set called the Universal Character Set (UCS) which encompasses most of the world's writing systems.Multi-octet characters, however, are not compatible with many current applications and protocols, and this has led to the development of a few so-called UCS transformation formats (UTF), each with different characteristics.UTF-8, the object of this memo, has the characteristic of preserving the full US-ASCII range, providing compatibility with file systems, parsers and other software that rely on US-ASCII values but are transparent to other values.