NAME

GBK, gbk − A character encoding system (codeset) for Simplified Chinese

DESCRIPTION

The GBK character set is an extension to the GB 2312−80 character set. (The “K” in “GBK” is the first sound in the Chinese word “Kuo Zhan,” which means “extension.”) GBK includes all the Hanzi characters specified by the ISO 10646−1:1993 standard (characters also known as the GB 13000.1.93 character set) that are not included in GB 2312−80. GBK is therefore defined as a normative annex of GB13000.1−93. 

GBK Value Ranges and Code Points

The GBK codeset is divided into five levels, as follows:

In addition, GBK includes code points for user-defined characters, as follows:

GBK therefore provides a total of 23,940 code points, 21,886 of which are assigned. 

Each row in the GBK code table consists of 190 characters. ASCII characters, which are single-byte characters, are defined in the range 0x21−0x7E. Encoding ranges for two-byte characters are as follows:

Encoding range for the first byte: 0x81-0xFE

Encoding ranges for the second byte: 0x40-0x7E and 0x80-0xFE

Note

In terms of character-to-code allocation, the sub-range for GB2321−80 characters (0xA1A1-0xFEFE) in GBK is the same encoding range defined for these characters in Extended UNIX Code (EUC). GBK is therefore backward compatible with Chinese EUC encoding as well as forward compatible with the encoding as defined by ISO 10646−1:1993. 

GBK is the standard character set and encoding used in the Simplified Chinese version of Windows 95. 

Codeset Converters for GBK

The following codeset converter pairs are available for converting Simplified Chinese characters between GBK and UCS formats. Refer to Unicode(5) for more information about the UTF-16, UCS-4, and UTF-8 encoding formats.  Refer to iconv_intro(5) for an introduction to codeset conversion. 

       •UTF-16_GBK, GBK_UTF-16

Converting from and to UTF-16 format

       •UCS-4_GBK, GBK_UCS-4

Converting from and to UCS-4 format

       •UTF-8_GBK, GBK_UTF-8

Converting from and to UTF-8 format

Fonts for GBK

The following set of Simplified Chinese TrueType fonts are installed as the operating system default fonts for GBK:

FangSong

-css_dongwen-fangsong-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-css_dongwen-fangsong-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-iso8859-1

HeiTi

-css_dongwen-heiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-css_dongwen-heiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-iso8859-1

KaiTi

-css_dongwen-kaiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-css_dongwen-kaiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-iso8859-1

SongTi

-css_dongwen-songti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-css_dongwen-songti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-iso8859-1

The following set of Simplified Chinese TrueType fonts are available as an installation option:

FangSong

-huatian-fangsong-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-huatian-fangsong-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-1

HeiTi

-huatian-heiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-huatian-heiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-1

KaiTi

-huatian-kaiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-huatian-kaiti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-1

SongTi

-huatian-songti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-c-0-gbk-1
-huatian-songti-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-1

The default and optional fonts can be used for printing only with Chinese text printers. With either the default or optional font sets installed, the SongTi fonts are the default screen fonts for the GBK codeset. See wwpsof(8) for information on the PostScript print filter and TrueType fonts. 

SEE ALSO

Commands: locale(1)

Others: ascii(5), big5(5), Chinese(5), dechanyu(5), dechanzi(5), eucTW(5), GB18030(5), i18n_intro(5), i18n_printing(5), l10n_intro(5), sbig5(5), telecode(5)