Ideographic Description Characters

Last updated
Ideographic Description Characters
RangeU+2FF0..U+2FFF
(16 code points)
Plane BMP
Scripts Common
Assigned16 code points
Unused0 reserved code points
Source standards GBK (U+2FF0–U+2FFB only)
Unicode version history
3.0 (1999)12 (+12)
15.1 (2023)16 (+4)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1] [2]

Ideographic Description Characters is a Unicode block containing graphic characters used for describing CJK ideographs. They are used in Ideographic Description Sequences (IDS) to provide a description of an ideograph, in terms of what other ideographs make it up and how they are laid out relative to one another. [3] An IDS provides the reader with a description of an ideograph that cannot be represented properly, usually because it is not encoded in Unicode; rendering systems are not intended to automatically compose the pieces into a complete ideograph, and the descriptions are not standardized.

Contents

U+2FF0 to U+2FFB were introduced from GBK; U+2FFC to U+2FFF were devised later and introduced in Unicode 15.1 (2023).

Block

Ideographic Description Characters [1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
 0123456789ABCDEF
U+2FFx⿰⿱⿲⿳⿴⿵⿶⿷⿸⿹⿺⿻⿼⿽⿾⿿
Notes
1. ^ As of Unicode version 16.0

Ideographic Description Sequences

Ideographic Description Sequences are sequences of characters that represent a Chinese character structure as defined by the Unicode standard.

Below are the 16 characters as defined by Unicode in this block:

UnicodeSymbolMeaningExample 1IDSExample 2IDS
U+2FF0⿰Two components combined left to right相⿰木目𠁢⿰丨㇍
U+2FF1⿱Two components combined above to below杏⿱木口𠚤⿱𠂊丶
U+2FF2⿲Three components combined left to middle and right衍⿲彳氵亍𠂗⿲丿夕乚
U+2FF3⿳Three components combined above to middle and below京⿳亠口小𠋑⿳亼目口
U+2FF4⿴One component fully wrapping another component回⿴囗口𠀬⿴㐁人
U+2FF5⿵One component surround three sides of another component (opening at bottom)凰⿵几皇𧓉⿵齊虫
U+2FF6⿶One component surround three sides of another component (opening at top)凶⿶凵㐅义⿶乂丶
U+2FF7⿷One component surround three sides of another component (opening at right)匠⿷匚斤𧆬⿷虎九
U+2FF8⿸One component surround top and left side of another component病⿸疒丙𤆯⿸耂火
U+2FF9⿹One component surround top and right side of another component戒⿹戈廾𢧌⿹或壬
U+2FFA⿺One component surround bottom and left side of another component超⿺走召𥘶⿺礼分
U+2FFB⿻Two components overlapped巫⿻工从𣏃⿻木⿻コ一
U+2FFC⿼One component surround three sides of another component (opening at left)㕚⿼叉丶𬺹⿼コ二
U+2FFD⿽One component surround bottom and right side of another component氷⿽水丶斗⿽⺀十
U+2FFE⿾Horizontal reflection卐⿾卍𣥄⿾正
U+2FFF⿿Rotation𠕄⿿凹𠄔⿿予

Two other related ideographic description characters are not encoded in this Unicode block, but of which may be used in ideographic description sequences:

UnicodeSymbolBlockMeaningExample 1IDSExample 2IDS
U+303E〾 CJK Symbols and Punctuation Variant but not equivalent㬵 (U+3B35)〾胶 (U+80F6) [4] 𫜵〾爫 [5]
U+31EF㇯ CJK Strokes Subtraction乒㇯兵丶𧰨㇯豕一


This is the syntax of IDS in EBNF:

IDS :=Ideographic |Radical |CJK_Stroke |Private Use |U+FF1F |IDS_UnaryOperator IDS |IDS_BinaryOperator IDS IDS |IDS_TrinaryOperator IDS IDS IDS CJK_Stroke :=U+31C0 |U+31C1 |...|U+31E3IDS_UnaryOperator :=U+2FFE |U+2FFF |U+303EIDS_BinaryOperator :=U+2FF0 |U+2FF1 |U+2FF4 |...|U+2FFD |U+31EFIDS_TrinaryOperator:=U+2FF2 |U+2FF3

History

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Ideographic Description Characters block:

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ↑ "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. ↑ IDS are described in chapter 18.2 of the Unicode Standard 9.0 on pages 689 through 692.
  4. ↑ "「㬵（U+3B35）」和「胶（U+80F6）」为什么在《康熙字典》收录了两次？ - 知乎". www.zhihu.com. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  5. ↑ "基本集扩充字考（五・完结）附扩充块新增字考". 知乎专栏 (in Chinese). Retrieved 2023-09-21.
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