Encode::TW(3pm)

🌸 Encode::TW(3pm) — Taiwan-based Chinese Encodings 🌸

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✨ NAME ✨

Encode::TW — Taiwan-based Chinese Encodings. Yes bestie, this is the Encode::TW(3pm) page, and it's all about the Taiwan-based Chinese encodings 💖

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

okay so you use it like this:

use Encode qw/encode decode/;
$big5 = encode("big5", $utf8); # loads Encode::TW implicitly
$utf8 = decode("big5", $big5); # ditto

the comments are literally doing the explaining: encode("big5", ...) loads Encode::TW implicitly, and decode("big5", ...) does ditto 🫶

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so this module implements the traditional Chinese charset encodings as used in Taiwan and Hong Kong. The encodings supported are as follows — canonical name, aliases, and description, no cap:

the encoding lineup 👑

• big5-eten — Big5 encoding (with ETen extensions). Aliases: /\bbig-?5$/i, /\bbig5-?et(en)?$/i, /\btca-?big5$/i.
• big5-hkscs — Big5 + Cantonese characters in Hong Kong. Aliases: /\bbig5-?hk(scs)?$/i, /\bhk(scs)?-?big5$/i.
• MacChineseTrad — Big5 + Apple Vendor Mappings.
• cp950 — Code Page 950 = Big5 + Microsoft vendor mappings.

To find out how to use this module in detail, see Encode.

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🧚 NOTES 🧚

Due to size concerns, EUC-TW (Extended Unix Character), CCCII (Chinese Character Code for Information Interchange), BIG5PLUS (CMEX's Big5+) and BIG5EXT (CMEX's Big5e) are distributed separately on CPAN, under the name Encode::HanExtra. That module also contains extra China-based encodings. slay, but keep that in mind 🫶

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💀 BUGS 💀

okay this part is important, bestie 💀

• Since the original big5 encoding (1984) is not supported anywhere (glibc and DOS-based systems use big5 to mean big5-eten; Microsoft uses big5 to mean cp950), a conscious decision was made to alias big5 to big5-eten, which is the de facto superset of the original big5.
• The CNS11643 encoding files are not complete. For common CNS11643 manipulation, please use EUC-TW in Encode::HanExtra, which contains planes 1-7.
• The ASCII region (0x00-0x7f) is preserved for all encodings, even though this conflicts with mappings by the Unicode Consortium.

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• Encode

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k bye bestie 💖 this page is from perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-11-03, and it signs off as Encode::TW(3pm) 🫶✨