A Coded Character Set Identifier (CCSID) comprises a specific set of an encoding scheme (EBCDIC, ASCII, or 8-bit ASCII), character set identifiers, code page identifiers, and additional coding-related information that uniquely identifies the coded graphic character representation used.
A character set is a collection of graphic characters.
Graphic characters are symbols, such as letters, numbers, and punctuation marks.
A code page is a set of binary identifiers for a group of graphic characters.
Code points are binary values that are assigned to each graphic character, to be used for entering, storing, changing, viewing, or printing information.
Character Data Representation Architecture (CDRA) defines the CCSID values to identify the code points used to represent characters, and to convert the character data as needed to preserve their meanings.
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