WTF? Printing unicode strings

["Martin v. Löwis"]

skip at pobox.com wrote:
> Learn something every day.  I take it "646" is an alias for "ascii" (or vice
> versa)?

Usage of "646" as an alias for ASCII is primarily a Sun invention. When
ASCII became an international standard, its standard number became
ISO/IEC 646:1968. It's not *quite* the same as ASCII, as it leaves a
certain number of code points unassigned that ASCII defines (most
notably, the dollar sign, and the square and curly braces). What Sun
means is probably the "International Reference Version" of ISO 646,
which is (now) identical to ASCII.

Regards,
Martin