RFC 1843 (rfc1843) - Page 1 of 5
HZ - A Data Format for Exchanging Files of Arbitrarily Mixed Chinese and ASCII characters
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group F. Lee
Request for Comments: 1843 Stanford University
Category: Informational August 1995
HZ - A Data Format for Exchanging Files of
Arbitrarily Mixed Chinese and ASCII characters
Status of this Memo
This memo provides information for the Internet community. This memo
does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.
Abstract
The content of this memo is identical to an article of the same title
written by the author on September 4, 1989. In this memo, GB stands
for GB2312-80. Note that the title is kept only for historical
reasons. HZ has been widely used for purposes other than "file
exchange".
1. Introduction
Most existing computer systems which can handle a text file of
arbitrarily mixed Chinese and ASCII characters use 8-bit codes. To
exchange such text files through electronic mail on ASCII computer
systems, it is necessary to encode them in a 7-bit format. A generic
binary to ASCII encoder is not sufficient, because there is currently
no universal standard for such 8-bit codes. For example, CCDOS and
Macintosh's Chinese OS use different internal codes. Fortunately,
there is a PRC national standard, GuoBiao (GB), for the encoding of
Chinese characters, and Chinese characters encoded in the above
systems can be easily converted to GB by a simple formula. (* The ROC
standard BIG-5 is outside the scope of this article.)
HZ is a 7-bit data format proposed for arbitrarily mixed GB and ASCII
text file exchange. HZ is also intended for the design of terminal
emulators that display and edit mixed Chinese and ASCII text files in
real time.
Lee Informational