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General Programming Concepts: Writing and Debugging Programs


Simplified Chinese Input Method (ZIM-UCS)

The UCS-2 code set consists of almost all character groups. For the ZH_CN locale, there are three character groups:

The CJK character set contains 20,992 character positions, but only 20,902 positions are assigned to Chinese characters.

The pronunciation of Chinese is represented by phonetic symbols called Bo-Po-Mo-Fo. There are 25 phonetic symbols. Chinese characters are represented by one to three phonetic symbols.

UCS-ZIM features the following characteristics:

The UCS-ZIM files are in the /usr/lib/nls/loc directory.

The UCS-ZIM keymap is in the /usr/lib/nls/loc/ZH_CN.UTF-8.imkeymap directory.

Chinese (CJK) Character Processing

UCS-ZIM is invoked by pressing one of the input method keys. Each radical or phonetic symbol is assigned to a key. The user inputs radicals or phonetic symbols to an over-the-spot pre-editing area. For Tsang-Jye and five stroke input, a character is generated when the conversion key is pressed. PinYin, English-to-Chinese, and ABC input generate a list of candidates that appear in a pop-up window. The user chooses the desired character by selecting the candidate number. Invalid input generates a beep and an error message. The glyphs can be input using the ABC input method.

The following special keys for the UCS-Chinese input method are defined on the Simplified Chinese 101-key keyboard.

Special UCS-Chinese Keys

Key Function Keysym Description of Function
Tsang-Jye Shift key XK_Tsang_Jye Invokes Tsang-Jye input method.
Phonetic Shift key XK_Pin_Yin Invokes the phonetic input method.
Legend Shift key XK_Legend Under phonetic input method, invokes phonetic legend mode.
English-to-Chinese Shift key XK_English _Chinese Invokes the English-to-Chinese input method.
ABC Shift key XK_ABC Invokes ABC input method.
Five Stroke Shift key XK_Five_Stroke Invokes Five Stroke input method.
IM Set Option key XK_IMED_Set _option Under phonetic and ABC input method, invokes territory set mode.
Half/Full-Width Toggle Shift key XK_Half_Full Toggles between half-width and full-width.
Conversion Shift key XK_Convert Converts radical and phonetic symbols into characters. Displays the candidates, if needed.
Non-Conversion Shift key XK_Non _Convert Interprets a phonetic symbol as a character.
English/Numeric key XK_Alph_Num Invokes ASCII mode.
User-Defined Shift key XK_User _Defined Invokes User defined input method.

Related Information

Chapter 16, National Language Support, Input Method Overview.

ISO Code Sets in AIX 5L Version 5.1 Kernel Extensions and Device Support Programming Concepts.


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