Is utf-8 null the same as utf-16/utf-32 null?

Question

Does one byte of zeros mean null in utf16 and utf32? as in utf8 or do we need 2 and 4 bytes of zeros to create null in utf16 and utf32 correspondingly?

Answer 1

In UTF-16 it would be two bytes, and in UTF-32 it would be 4 bytes.

After all, otherwise you couldn't differentiate between a character whose encoded value just happened to start with a zero byte and a single zero byte representing U+0000.

Basically UTF-16 works in blocks of 2 bytes, and UTF-32 works in blocks of 4 bytes. (Admittedly for characters outside the BMP you need two "blocks" of UTF-16, but the principle is still the same.) If you were to implement a UTF-16 decoder, you'd read two bytes at a time.