$CharacterEncoding

$CharacterEncoding specifies the default raw character encoding to use for input and output functions.

The default setting for $CharacterEncoding is $SystemCharacterEncoding.

The setting $CharacterEncoding = None takes all special characters to be represented externally by printable ASCII sequences such as \[Name] and \:xxxx.

Possible other settings are:

With $CharacterEncoding = "encoding" characters that are included in the encoding can be input in their raw 8- or 16-bit form, and will be output in this form.

Unencoded characters can be input and will be output in standard \[Name] or \:xxxx form.

When using a text-based interface, resetting the value of $CharacterEncoding has an immediate effect on standard input and output in a Mathematica session.

When using the notebook front end, raw character encodings are normally handled automatically based on the fonts you use. Only raw 16-bit Unicode is ever sent through the MathLink connection to the kernel.

$CharacterEncoding can be set to a list of the form class, , "", , "", ... . The class defines the general form of encoding; the give character codes for specific characters . Possible settings for class include:

$CharacterEncoding affects the input and output of all characters, including those in symbol names and comments.

$CharacterEncoding also affects characters that appear in Text graphics primitives.

See The Mathematica Book: Section 2.7.8.

See also: CharacterEncoding, FromCharacterCode, ToCharacterCode, $SystemCharacterEncoding, $ByteOrdering.