CS Knowledge Base

Unicode 6.2, Core Specification is now available as paperback book.

Responding to requests, the editorial committee has created a modestly-priced print-on-demand volume that contains the complete text of the core specification of Version 6.2 of the Unicode Standard. This 692-page volume may be purchased from Lulu.com for $17.24, plus shipping.

Note that this volume does not include the Version 6.2 code charts, nor does it include the Version 6.2 Standard Annexes and Unicode Character Database, all of which are available only on the Unicode website, http://www.unicode.org/versions/Unicode6.2.0/ .

Purchase The Unicode Standard, Version 6.2 - Core Specification.

The Unicode Character Encoding Stability Policies ensure that developers know what they can depend on between successive releases of the Unicode Standard.
Recent changes to these policies include new guarantees:

• Property aliases will not be reused later for different properties.
• Property value aliases will not be reused later for different property values.
• Characters with the General_Category of Number are guaranteed to have a corresponding Numeric_Type value.

Additionally, the wording for two earlier guarantees about General_Category and Bidi_Class have been clarified:

• No new General_Category property values will ever be added.
• New Bidi_Class property values can only be added for a tightly constrained class of new character additions.

For the exact wording of these new and updated guarantees, see Unicode Character Encoding Stability Policies.

Unicode 6.3 is slated to be released in 2013Q3. Now is your opportunity to comment on the contents of this release.

The text of the Unicode Standard Annexes (segmentation, normalization, identifiers, etc.) is open for comments and feedback, with proposed update versions posted at UAX Proposed Updates. Initially, the contents of these documents are unchanged: the one exception is UAX #9 (BIDI), which has major revisions in PRI232. Changes to the text will be rolled in over the next few months, with more significant changes being announced. Feedback is especially useful on the changes in the proposed updates, and should be submitted by mid-January for consideration at the Unicode Technical Committee meeting at the end of January.

A later announcement will be sent when the beta versions of the Unicode character properties for 6.3 are available for comment. The only characters planned for this release are a small number of bidi control characters connected with the changes to UAX #9.

The Unicode Collation Algorithm (UCA) data is being modified to make all digits with the same numeric value sort the same, whether they are European (ASCII), Arabic, Devanagari, or others. In addition, the format of the main data table has changed to omit the (unused) 4th level weight, and some data tables are moved to the Unicode CLDR project.

These and other changes are in the new proposed update: see PRI 235. For the exact list of modifications, see Modifications.