ASCII table

ASCII (an acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding standard for electronic communication that uses just 128 code points (so 7b encoding).

  0x0? 0x1? 0x2? 0x3? 0x4? 0x5? 0x6? 0x7?
0x?0 NUL DLE   0 @ P ` p
0x?1 SOH DC1 ! 1 A Q a q
0x?2 STX DC2 " 2 B R b r
0x?3 ETX DC3 # 3 C S c s
0x?4 EOT DC4 $ 4 D T d t
0x?5 ENQ NAK % 5 E U e u
0x?6 ACK SYN & 6 F V f v
0x?7 BEL ETB ' 7 G W g w
0x?8 BS CAN ( 8 H X h x
0x?9 HT EM ) 9 I Y i y
0x?A LF SUB * : J Z j z
0x?B VT ESC + ; K [ k {
0x?C FF FS , < L \ l |
0x?D CR GS - = M ] m }
0x?E SO RS . > N ^ n ~
0x?F SI US / ? P _ o DEL

Easy to miss items:

  • 0x20:   — space character
  • 0x27: ' — apostrophe
  • 0x60: ` — backtick (grave accent)

Bitwise masking

One might hit bit-wise masks used for a quick detection of characters class.

Binary code mask Masked group completeness Hex range Character class
000x xxxx full 0x00—0x1F control characters
0010 xxxx full 0x20—0x2F space or punctuation
0011 xxxx partial 0x30—0x39 digits
010x xxxx partial 0x41—0x5A capital letters
011x xxxx partial 0x61—0x7A lowercase letters

Control characters

Physical device control:

  • BEL — BELl (beep sound, alarm, warning, screen flashing)
  • BS — BackSpace
  • HT — Horizontal Tab
  • LF — Line Feed
  • VT — Vertical Tab
  • FF — Form Feed
  • CR — Carriage Return
  • DC1 (aka XON) — Device Control 1
  • DC2 — Device Control 2
  • DC3 (aka XOFF) — Device Control 3
  • DC4 — Device Control 4

Logic communication control:

  • SOH — Start Of Header
  • STX — Start Of teXt
  • ETX — End Of teXt
  • EOT — End Of Transmission
  • ENQ — ENQuiry
  • ACK — ACKnowledge
  • DLE — Data Link Escape
  • NAK — Negative AcKnowledge
  • SYN — SYNchronous idle
  • ETB — End of Transmission Block

Physical communication control:

  • NUL — NULl (used as string terminating character of C language)
  • CAN — CANcel
  • EM — End of Medium
  • SUB — SUBstitute
  • DEL — DELete

Information separators:

  • FS — File Separator
  • GS — Group Separator
  • RS — Record Separator
  • US — Unit Separator

Code extension:

  • SO — Shift Out
  • SI — Shift In
  • ESC — ESCape
Control character Caret notation C string escaped characters
NUL ^@ \0
SOH ^A  
STX ^B  
ETX ^C  
EOT ^D  
ENQ ^E  
ACK ^F  
BEL ^G \a
BS ^H \b
HT ^I \t
LF ^J \n
VT ^K \v
FF ^L \f
CR ^M \r
SO ^N  
SI ^P  
DLE ^P  
DC1 ^Q  
DC2 ^R  
DC3 ^S  
DC4 ^T  
NAK ^U  
SYN ^V  
ETB ^W  
CAN ^X  
EM ^Y  
SUB ^Z  
ESC ^[ \e
FS ^\  
GS ^]  
RS ^^  
US ^_  
DEL ^?  

Extra round: ITU Morse code and ICAO phonetic alphabet

Not the same topic, but a nice place to show that some

Letter International (ITU) Morse code ICAO/NATO phonetic alphabet
A · — Alpha (AL-FAH)
B — · · · Bravo (BRAH-VOH)
C — · — · Charlie (CHAR-LEE or SHAR-LEE)
D — · · Delta (DELL-TAH)
E · Echo (ECK-OH)
F · · — · Foxtrot (FOKS-TROT)
G — — · Golf (GOLF)
H · · · · Hotel (HOH-TEL)
I · · India (IN-DEE-AH)
J · — — — Juliet (JEW-LEE-ETT)
K — · — Kilo (KEY-LOH)
L · — · · Lima (LEE-MAH)
M — — Mike (MIKE)
N — · November (NO-VEM-BER)
O — — — Oscar (OSS-CAH)
P · — — · Papa (PAH-PAH)
Q — — · — Quebec (KEH-BECK)
R · — · Romeo (ROW-ME-OH)
S · · · Sierra (SEE-AIR-RAH)
T — Tango (TANG-GO)
U · · — Uniform (YOU-NEE-FORM)
V · · · — Victor (VIK-TAH)
W · — — Whiskey (WISS-KEY)
X — · · — X-ray (ECKS-RAY)
Y — · — — Yankee (YANG-KEY)
Z — — · · Zulu (ZOO-LOO)
0 — — — — — Zero (ZEE-RO)
1 · — — — — One (WUN)
2 · · — — — Two (TOO)
3 · · · — — Three (TREE)
4 · · · · — Four (FOW-ER)
5 · · · · · Five (FIFE)
6 · · · — — Six (SIX)
7 · · — — — Seven (SEV-EN)
8 · — — — — Eight (AIT)
9 — — — — — Nine (NIN-ER)
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