Format

/juː-ti-ɛf θɜːrtiː-tuː/

noun — "a fixed-length Unicode encoding using 32-bit units."

UTF-32 (Unicode Transformation Format, 32-bit) is a character encoding standard that represents every Unicode code point using a fixed 32-bit code unit. Unlike variable-length encodings such as UTF-8 or UTF-16, each Unicode character in UTF-32 is stored in exactly 4 bytes, providing simple and direct access to any character without the need for parsing multiple bytes or surrogate pairs.

Technically, UTF-32 works as follows:

/juː-ti-ɛf/

noun — "a family of Unicode Transformation Format encodings."

UTF (Unicode Transformation Format) refers collectively to a set of character encoding schemes designed to represent Unicode code points as sequences of bytes or code units. Each UTF variant defines a method to convert the abstract numeric code points of Unicode into a binary format suitable for storage, transmission, and processing in digital systems. The most common UTFs are UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32, each with different characteristics optimized for efficiency, compatibility, or simplicity.

/juː-ti-ɛf sɪksˈtiːn/

noun — "a fixed- or variable-length encoding for Unicode using 16-bit units."

/juː-ti-ɛf eɪt/

noun — "a variable-length encoding for Unicode characters."

UTF-8 (Unicode Transformation Format, 8-bit) is a character encoding system that represents every Unicode code point using sequences of 1 to 4 bytes. It is designed to be backward-compatible with ASCII, efficient for storage, and fully capable of representing every character defined in the Unicode standard. UTF-8 has become the dominant encoding for web content, software, and data interchange because it combines compatibility, compactness, and universality.

/ɛks tiː fɔːr/

noun — "modern journaling Linux filesystem."

EXT4, short for Fourth Extended File System, is a Linux filesystem that advances the design of EXT3 by adding features for higher performance, larger volume and file support, and improved reliability. It maintains backward compatibility with EXT3 while introducing extents, delayed allocation, multiblock allocation, and larger timestamps, enhancing efficiency and reducing fragmentation.

/ɛks tiː θriː/

noun — "journaling Linux filesystem."

EXT3, short for Third Extended File System, is a Linux filesystem that builds upon the structure of EXT2 by adding journaling capabilities to improve reliability and reduce recovery time after system crashes. It maintains backward compatibility with EXT2, allowing existing tools, utilities, and data to work seamlessly, while providing enhanced integrity for both metadata and optionally data.

/ɛks tiː tuː/

noun — "second generation Linux filesystem."

EXT2, short for Second Extended File System, is a filesystem designed for Linux that introduced improvements over the original EXT filesystem, including larger volume support, optimized metadata management, and more efficient file storage structures. It does not include journaling, unlike its successors EXT3 and EXT4, but its simplicity offers high performance for certain use cases, particularly on systems where crash recovery is handled externally.

/ɛks tɛnˈdɪd/

noun — "Linux filesystem family."

EXT, short for Extended File System, is a series of filesystems primarily used in Linux operating systems. It was designed to improve upon the limitations of early UNIX-like filesystems by introducing features like larger volume support, journaling, and metadata optimization. The family includes EXT2, EXT3, and EXT4, each progressively adding capabilities while maintaining backward compatibility.

/ˌfæt ˈtwɛlv/

noun — "early File Allocation Table filesystem."

FAT12, short for File Allocation Table 12, is the original variant of the FAT filesystem family, using 12-bit cluster addressing to manage storage on floppy disks and small-volume drives. It organizes data into clusters and tracks their allocation in a linear table, providing a simple yet effective method for file storage and retrieval.

/ˌfæt/

noun — "file allocation table filesystem family."

FAT, short for File Allocation Table, is a family of disk filesystems designed to organize, store, and retrieve files on block-based storage devices using a table-driven allocation scheme. Variants include FAT12, FAT16, and FAT32, each defined by the number of bits used to address clusters. FAT abstracts physical storage layout into logical cluster sequences, enabling operating systems and firmware to manage files without hardware-specific knowledge.