# Strings and Character Encodings

Typically, C clients manipulate strings using the character encoding of the machine on which they are running.

The EMS C client library itself does not do any encoding or decoding of characters. When sending a message, an EMS C client application can use `tibemsMsg_SetEncoding` to put information into the message describing the encoding used. When receiving a message in an EMS C client application, the encoding can be retrieved using `tibemsMsg_GetEncoding` and then a third party library can be used to do the actual decoding.

## Character Limits for Connection URLs

Connection URLs are limited to a length of 1000 characters. Note that this limit pertains to the C client library, as well as the administration tool and the factories.conf configuration file.

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