How Unicode Non-spacing Marks Work

Three rules govern the behavior of Unicode non-spacing marks:

  1. A non-spacing mark always combines with the character that precedes it. If the backing store contains the character codes

    U+006F LATIN SMALL LETTER O
U+0302 COMBINING DIAERESIS
U+006F LATIN SMALL LETTER O

    they represent the sequence

    and not the sequence

    In other words, the diaeresis attaches to the o that precedes it.

    Unicode's designers could have gone either way with this decision. It really doesn't make much difference whether the mark attaches to the ...

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