RFC 1843 (rfc1843) - Page 1 of 5

HZ - A Data Format for Exchanging Files of Arbitrarily Mixed Chinese and ASCII characters

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