AIX Version 4.3 Differences Guide

10.5 Euro Symbol Support for AIX (4.3.2)
Figure 52. Euro Symbol (http://europa.eu.int/euro/html/entry.html)
This section will provide you with the necessary information required to introduce
the Euro symbol as a valid graphical and printable character to your AIX system.
The primary means of code set support for the Euro symbol is achieved by use of
the UTF-8 multi-byte encoded locales for each country. A detailed outline of the
locale definitions for the UTF-8 code set, the keyboard definitions, the input
methods, and the codeset conversion tables is given.
For those customers that have applications that will not support multi-byte
encoding, such as UTF-8, a Euro single-byte migration option based on the
IBM-1252 code set is provided. This topic is addressed in 10.5.6, “Euro SBCS
Migration Option - IBM-1252 Locale” on page 270.
10.5.7, “Packaging” on page 271, and 10.5.8, “Installation of Euro Symbol
Support” on page 272 cover the Euro symbol support in more practical terms. You
may want to skip over to these sections first and install the Euro symbol related
locales by following the documented step-by-step instructions, gain some
experience in the new environment, then come back to the more theoretical
oriented sections at a later time.
10.5.1 Overview
The Euro is being introduced by the European Monetary Union (EMU) as a
common currency to be adopted by all EMU member countries. Initial use of the
Euro in banking and industry is planned beginning in January of 1999. During the
first three years after introduction, the Euro currency and the existing national
currencies will both be used, and a fixed exchange rate will be established. The
goal is to completely replace the existing national currencies by the year 2002.
The primary means of achieving code set support for the Euro symbol is to make
use of the UTF-8 locales for each country. UTF-8 refers to the X/Open file system
safe UCS transformation format (FSS-UTF). It is a multi-byte code set suitable to
encode plain text on traditional byte-oriented systems, such as AIX, and is
directly related to the universal code character set (UCS). The Unicode standard
has adopted code point position U+20AC as . This is not to be
confused with the old European currency symbol located at U+20A0.
252 AIX Version 4.3 Differences Guide