Variation Selectors (Unicode block)

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Variation Selectors
RangeU+FE00..U+FE0F
(16 code points)
PlaneBMP
ScriptsInherited
Assigned16 code points
Unused0 reserved code points
Unicode version history
3.2 (2002)16 (+16)
Unicode documentation
Code chart ∣ Web page
Note: [1][2]

Variation Selectors is a Unicode block containing 16 variation selectors used to specify a glyph variant for a preceding character. They are currently used to specify standardized variation sequences for mathematical symbols, emoji symbols, 'Phags-pa letters, and CJK unified ideographs corresponding to CJK compatibility ideographs. At present only standardized variation sequences with VS1, VS2, VS3, VS15 and VS16 have been defined; VS15 and VS16 are reserved to request that a character should be displayed as text or as an emoji respectively.[3][4]

These combining characters are named variation selector-1 (for U+FE00) through to variation selector-16 (U+FE0F), and are abbreviated VS1 – VS16. Each applies to the immediately preceding character.

As of Unicode 13.0:[5]

Variation Selectors[1]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+FE0x  VS 
1
 VS 
2
 VS 
3
 VS 
4
 VS 
5
 VS 
6
 VS 
7
 VS 
8
 VS 
9
 VS 
10
 VS 
11
 VS 
12
 VS 
13
 VS 
14
 VS 
15
 VS 
16
Notes
1.^ As of Unicode version 15.1

This list is continued in the Variation Selectors Supplement.

See also[edit]

History[edit]

The following Unicode-related documents record the purpose and process of defining specific characters in the Variation Selectors block:

Version Final code points[a] Count L2 ID WG2 ID Document
3.2 U+FE00..FE0F 16 L2/97-260 Hiura, Hideki; Kobayashi, Tatsuo (1997-12-01), Plane 14 Variant Tag
L2/98-039 Aliprand, Joan; Winkler, Arnold (1998-02-24), "2.D.4 Variant Tag Mechanism", Preliminary Minutes - UTC #74 & L2 #171, Mountain View, CA - December 5, 1997
L2/98-277 Hiura, Hideki; Kobayashi, Tatsuo (1998-07-29), Plane 14 Variant tag
L2/98-281R (pdf, html) Aliprand, Joan (1998-07-31), "III.E.3 Variant Tagging (III.E.3)", Unconfirmed Minutes - UTC #77 & NCITS Subgroup L2 # 174 JOINT MEETING, Redmond, WA -- July 29-31, 1998
L2/00-187 Moore, Lisa (2000-08-23), "Variation Selector", UTC minutes -- Boston, August 8-11, 2000
L2/01-268 Freytag, Asmus (2001-06-27), Variant selector
L2/01-309 Jenkins, John (2001-08-08), Variation selectors and Han
L2/01-324R Davis, Mark (2001-08-17), Variation Selectors [document has incorrect L2 ID number]
L2/01-295R Moore, Lisa (2001-11-06), "88-M5", Minutes from the UTC/L2 meeting #88
L2/02-154 N2403 Umamaheswaran, V. S. (2002-04-22), "7.12", Draft minutes of WG 2 meeting 41, Hotel Phoenix, Singapore, 2001-10-15/19
L2/17-086 Burge, Jeremy; et al. (2017-03-27), Add ZWJ, VS-16, Keycaps & Tags to Emoji_Component
L2/17-103 Moore, Lisa (2017-05-18), "E.1.7 Add ZWJ, VS-16, Keycaps & Tags to Emoji_Component", UTC #151 Minutes
  1. ^ Proposed code points and characters names may differ from final code points and names

References[edit]

  1. ^ "Unicode character database". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  2. ^ "Enumerated Versions of The Unicode Standard". The Unicode Standard. Retrieved 2023-07-26.
  3. ^ "StandardizedVariants.txt". Unicode Consortium. 2015-11-20. Retrieved 2016-08-28.
  4. ^ "Emoji Variation Sequences". Unicode Consortium. 2020-09-18. Retrieved 2020-11-18.
  5. ^ "UCD: Standardized Variation Sequences". Unicode Consortium.