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Frequently Asked Questions

ARTICLE SUMMARY Why do some characters take two spaces? SYMPTOMS Why are characters such as [ and ] mapped over 2 characters? RESOLUTION GSM is a 7 bit character set. In order to get as many of the ASCII characters mapped, non printable characters 0x00-0x1F have been used to represent some of the characters. Others are represented by closest character prepended by an ESC (escape character). There are many complex reasons why GSM specification writers chose this method. In this character set, some characters are mapped into 2 characters ("ESC" + the character). The following characters will take 2 spaces each in SMS text messages: Hex Description 0x1B0A Form feed 0x1B14 Circumflex accent ^ 0x1B28 Left curly bracket { 0x1B29 Right curly bracket } 0x1B2F Backslash 0x1B3C Left square bracket [ 0x1B3D Tilde ~ 0x1B3E Right square bracket ] 0x1B40 Vertical bar | 0x1B65 Euro sign ? Here is a web page that very simply shows which characters are supported and what encoding to use if you use our HTTP or XML APIs: http://www.csoft.co.uk/sms/character_sets/encoding.htm Here is an example of this usage: http://api.clickatell.com/http/sendmsg?user=*****&password=*****&api_id=*****&to=*****&text=%C7a+va%2C+mon+%E9l%E8ve%2C+mi+ni%F1a%3F With valid info inserted for the asterisks, the message that arrives on the phone should be: Ça va, mon élève, mi niña? Please contact our support team if you need more information. How Helpful was this Article? Not Helpful Slightly Helpful Somewhat Helpful Very Helpful Indispensable Category: HTTP Entry Date: Tue Dec 30 2003 11:47:10