Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

coded character set
     
         A mapping from a set of {integers} to a
        set of {characters}.  This mapping is generally 1:1 (i.e.,
        {bijective}), for example, the code position 65 in {ASCII}
        maps only to "A", and it's the only position that maps to "A".
     
        There are several standard coded character sets, the most
        widely used is {ASCII}, generally in its {Latin-1} dialect,
        with {Unicode} becoming slowly more common; while {EBCDIC} and
        {Baudot} are extinct except in {legacy systems}.
     
        A coded character set may include letters, digits,
        punctuation, {control codes}, various mathematical and
        typographic symbols, and other characters.  Each character in
        the set is represented by a unique character code (or "{code
        position}").
     
        (1998-10-18)