From: Philippe VERDY (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Tue Jan 18 2005 - 16:16:31 CST
> If one should philosophize on the question of general multi-byte encodings
> (or rather "transformation formats"), then UTF-BSS uses a leading byte the
> number of bytes displayed in a unary number format, numbers of base 1. In
> fact, in a computer, it is more efficient to use binary numbers :-), so I
> would probably put a binary number there for instead. One could still use
> the unary number idea in order to indicate the length of the binary numbers.
If I want to philosophe, the only UNARY number that exists is ZERO.
Unary number(s!) is not making an arithmetic.
I suppose you meant BINARY throughout... because numbers of base 1 DON'T EXIST!
(just ask yourself what is the definition of a base for numbers, and think about powers of this base to scale each digit: 1^n equals 1 for scaling every digit position n, so all digits scale by the same factor. To be a unique representation of numbers in that system, the only satisfying integer is zero...)
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