HN Explorer

Poll: Do you know about full-width Unicode characters?

2 points by qiqitori ↗ HN
In certain countries, almost every computer user would know about full-width and half-width characters. I was wondering if software developers and/or power users from other countries know about them. (HN seems like a good demographic to ask.)

2 comments

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ChrisGranger
Ｉ＇ｍ ａｗａｒｅ ｏｆ ｔｈｅｍ． I don't have any particular use for them, though. Do you use them?
qiqitori
They are extensively used in Japanese computing. E.g., when you start typing numbers without first switching off the input method editor (which allows you to select Japanese/Chinese characters), by default (*possibly depends on platform), you will get full-width numbers as the first conversion candidate.

On Japanese sites, HTML forms also often expect either full-width or half-width letters and numbers (in, e.g., addresses).

For this reason, it might be useful to generally be aware of them even if you don't use CJK.