The character encoding support described in the second edition of the standard is very specific:

"A conforming implementation of the International standard shall interpret characters in conformance with the Unicode Standard, Version 2.0, and ISO/IEC 10646-1 with UCS-2 as the adopted encoding form, implementation level 3. If the adopted ISO/IEC 10646-1 subset is not otherwise specified, it is presumed to be the BMP subset, collection 300."

Other than typographical and editorial changes, little was added between the first and second editions of the ECMA standard. That means this edition becomes the foundation specification for the core language.

The principle features of this edition include:

• Arithmetic, string and logical operators

• Global and local variables managed via scope chains

• Core data types and objects (Number, String, Boolean)

• Core object types (Date and Array)

• Core numeric library support by means of the Math object

• Language flow control and keywords

• Object instantiation by means of constructors

• Inheritance supported via prototype chains

Cross-references:

ISO/IEC 10646-1 Information Technology -- Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS), plus its amendments and technical corrigenda.

The Unicode Standard, Version 2.0, Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. ISBN: 0-201-48345-9