UTF-7
E123130
UTF-7 is an obsolete, 7-bit Unicode text encoding designed primarily for safe transmission of Unicode data over email systems that were not fully 8-bit clean.
All labels observed (5)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| UTF-7 canonical | 2 |
| 7-bit Unicode Transformation Format | 1 |
| PyUnicode_EncodeUTF7 | 1 |
| System.Text.UTF7Encoding | 1 |
| UTF-7: A Mail-Safe Transformation Format of Unicode | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1079862 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: UTF-7 Context triple: [UTF-32, isAlternativeTo, UTF-7]
-
A.
UTF-32
UTF-32 is a fixed-length Unicode character encoding that represents each code point using 32 bits, providing simple indexing at the cost of higher memory usage.
-
B.
Unicode
Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that assigns unique code points to virtually all written scripts, symbols, and emojis used in modern computing.
-
C.
ISO/IEC 8859-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1 is an 8-bit single-byte character encoding standard that covers Western European languages and was widely used before the adoption of Unicode.
-
D.
ASCII
ASCII is a widely used character encoding standard that represents text in computers and other devices using 7-bit numerical codes for letters, digits, punctuation, and control characters.
-
E.
Unicode Technical Standard #10
Unicode Technical Standard #10 is the specification that defines the Unicode Collation Algorithm, providing a standardized method for comparing and sorting Unicode text across languages and platforms.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: UTF-7 Target entity description: UTF-7 is an obsolete, 7-bit Unicode text encoding designed primarily for safe transmission of Unicode data over email systems that were not fully 8-bit clean.
-
A.
UTF-32
UTF-32 is a fixed-length Unicode character encoding that represents each code point using 32 bits, providing simple indexing at the cost of higher memory usage.
-
B.
Unicode
Unicode is a universal character encoding standard that assigns unique code points to virtually all written scripts, symbols, and emojis used in modern computing.
-
C.
ISO/IEC 8859-1
ISO/IEC 8859-1 is an 8-bit single-byte character encoding standard that covers Western European languages and was widely used before the adoption of Unicode.
-
D.
ASCII
ASCII is a widely used character encoding standard that represents text in computers and other devices using 7-bit numerical codes for letters, digits, punctuation, and control characters.
-
E.
Unicode Technical Standard #10
Unicode Technical Standard #10 is the specification that defines the Unicode Collation Algorithm, providing a standardized method for comparing and sorting Unicode text across languages and platforms.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (46)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Unicode transformation format
ⓘ
character encoding ⓘ obsolete technology ⓘ |
| bitWidth | 7-bit ⓘ |
| category | Unicode encodings ⓘ |
| classification | legacy encoding ⓘ |
| compatibleWith | 7-bit transport channels ⓘ |
| definedFor | Unicode 1.1 ⓘ |
| deprecatedIn |
RFC 3490
ⓘ
RFC 3629 ⓘ RFC 3986 ⓘ |
| designedFor |
MIME email systems not fully 8-bit clean
ⓘ
safe transmission of Unicode over 7-bit email systems ⓘ |
| discouragedFor |
modern web applications
ⓘ
new protocols ⓘ |
| encodesDirectly | subset of ASCII characters ⓘ |
| encodesIndirectly | non-ASCII Unicode characters ⓘ |
| encodingType | variable-length encoding ⓘ |
| fullName |
7-bit Unicode Transformation Format
ⓘ
linked to:
UTF-7
|
| hasMIMECharsetName | UTF-7 ⓘ |
| introducedInStandard | RFC 1642 ⓘ |
| notCompatibleWith | strict 8-bit clean assumptions ⓘ |
| primaryUseCase |
email message bodies
ⓘ
newsgroup postings ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1994 ⓘ |
| recommendedAlternative |
UTF-8 with MIME base64
ⓘ
UTF-8 with MIME quoted-printable ⓘ |
| relatedTo |
Base64
ⓘ
UTF-16 ⓘ UTF-8 ⓘ |
| replacedBy |
UTF-16
ⓘ
UTF-32 ⓘ UTF-8 ⓘ |
| securityIssue |
can be used for content filter evasion
ⓘ
can cause cross-site scripting (XSS) issues in web contexts ⓘ |
| securityProperty | considered insecure ⓘ |
| shiftSequenceEnd | - ⓘ |
| shiftSequenceStart | + ⓘ |
| standardizedBy |
IETF
ⓘ
linked to:
Internet Engineering Task Force
|
| status | obsolete ⓘ |
| supports | Unicode ⓘ |
| transportGoal | avoid use of 8-bit or control characters in email ⓘ |
| usageToday | rare ⓘ |
| uses |
ASCII as base encoding
ⓘ
modified Base64-like encoding for non-ASCII characters ⓘ |
| usesShiftCharacter | + ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: UTF-7 Description of subject: UTF-7 is an obsolete, 7-bit Unicode text encoding designed primarily for safe transmission of Unicode data over email systems that were not fully 8-bit clean.
Referenced by (6)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
linked to: UTF-7
linked to: UTF-7