Decomposition Type - Compat
Compat is a category within the Decomposition Type that indicates a character has a compatibility decomposition, meaning it is a typographic or semantic variant of its base form, not an exact equivalent. This occurs when a character was originally designed for a specific context, such as width, ligature, or formatting, and can be mapped to a simpler or more standard sequence for normalization or search purposes. The distinction matters because compatibility decompositions lose formatting information, so they are not considered canonical, and applications may ignore them to preserve visual or textual fidelity. Examples include fullwidth forms, circled numbers, or superscripts, which map to standard characters but retain a separate identity for legacy or display reasons.