ASCII Table

Date: , Updated: — by Slatian

This ASCII-Table is mostly derived from the Unicode 15.0 Documentation.

Table of Contents

Mostly Printable Characters

Skip to the control characters table

Codes 0x20 to 0x7E are referred to as the printable characters, 0x7F is a control character. Wikipedia has more background information.

Numbers and Specials
Char Hex Dec
SPACE 20 32
! 21 33
" 22 34
# 23 35
$ 24 36
% 25 37
& 26 38
' 27 39
( 28 40
) 29 41
* 2a 42
+ 2b 43
, 2c 44
- 2d 45
. 2e 46
/ 2f 47
0 30 48
1 31 49
2 32 50
3 33 51
4 34 52
5 35 53
6 36 54
7 37 55
8 38 56
9 39 57
: 3a 58
; 3b 59
< 3c 60
= 3d 61
> 3e 62
? 3f 63
Uppercase
Char Hex Dec
@ 40 64
A 41 65
B 42 66
C 43 67
D 44 68
E 45 69
F 46 70
G 47 71
H 48 72
I 49 73
J 4a 74
K 4b 75
L 4c 76
M 4d 77
N 4e 78
O 4f 79
P 50 80
Q 51 81
R 52 82
S 53 83
T 54 84
U 55 85
V 56 86
W 57 87
X 58 88
Y 59 89
Z 5a 90
[ 5b 91
\ 5c 92
] 5d 93
^ 5e 94
_ 5f 95
Lowercase
Char Hex Dec
` 60 96
a 61 97
b 62 98
c 63 99
d 64 100
e 65 101
f 66 102
g 67 103
h 68 104
i 69 105
j 6a 106
k 6b 107
l 6c 108
m 6d 109
n 6e 110
o 6f 111
p 70 112
q 71 113
r 72 114
s 73 115
t 74 116
u 75 117
v 76 118
w 77 119
x 78 120
y 79 121
z 7a 122
{ 7b 123
| 7c 124
} 7d 125
~ 7e 126
DEL 7f 127

Note on the DEL code:The DEL being 0x7F, meaning it has all 7 bits set, probably originates from how one "deleted" something from paper tape, by just punching all of the holes one could "erase" the original character. Its meaning is ambigious, but it usually refers to a backspace.

Fun Fact: The lowercase characters in ASCII were an "aftertought" and only added later in 1965, two years after the initial release.

Control characters

Char Hex Oct Dec Name C Esc
NUL 00 000 0 Null
SOH 01 001 1 Start Of Heading
STX 02 002 2 Start Of Text
ETX 03 003 3 End Of Text
EOT 04 004 4 End Of Transmission
ENQ 05 005 5 Enquiry
ACK 06 006 6 Acknowledge
BEL 07 007 7 Bell / Alert \a
BS 08 010 8 BAckspace
HT 09 011 9 HOrizontal Tab \t
LF 0a 012 10 Line Feed \n
VT 0b 013 11 Vertical Tab \v
FF 0c 014 12 Form Feed \f
CR 0d 015 13 Carriage Return \r
SO 0e 016 14 Shift Out
SI 0f 017 15 Shift In
DLE 10 020 16 Data Link Escape
DC1 11 021 17 Device Control 1
DC2 12 022 18 Device Control 2
DC3 13 023 19 Device Control 3
DC4 14 024 20 Device Control 4
NAK 15 025 21 Negative Acknowledge
SYN 16 026 22 Synchronous Idle
ETB 17 027 23 End Of Transmission Block
CAN 18 030 24 Cancel
EM 19 031 25 End Of Medium
SUB 1a 032 26 Substitute
ESC 1b 033 27 Escape \e
FS 1c 034 28 File Seperator
GS 1d 035 29 Group Seperator
RS 1e 036 30 Record Seperator
US 1f 037 31 Unit Seperator

Note: The Names have been titlecased to make them easier to read.

Notation

Escaping in Scripting and Programming

Sometimes in languages one can't use all the characters available in the source file, especially when using control characters. Encoding these as other characters is called escaping. This usually happens with text between double quotes ".

There are differences between languages and implementations but the general rules are:

Note: C Esc here is short C-Escape as the C language apparantly started this way of excaping characters in strings. It is now used by almost all modern languages and in other contexts. i.e. printf, sed, etc. exact support may vary.

Escaping in XML and HTML

XML and html have their own way of escaping non-printable characters, this involves a sequence sandwiched between an ampersand & and a semicolon ;.

In general Characters can be escaped using &#<dec>; where <dec> is replaced by the decimal value associted with the character. (i.e, &#38; to encode an ampersand &)

There are also named escapes to make remembering them easier:

Character XML-escape
& &amp;
< &lt;
> &gt;
" &quot;

Control and Shift

With the ASCII table control and shift keys an be implemented using simple addition and substraction.

The lowercase character can be obtained by adding 32 (0x20) to the code of the corresponding uppercase character and the control key goes 64 (0x40) in the opposite direction.

With that ctrl+c maps to code 3 "End of Text". And ctrl+d maps to "End of Transmission". You may know those shortcuts from the terminal, they hopefully make a bit more sense now.

Control characters are sometimes written down/printed as the character one gets when adding 64 to the control characters value prefixed by an ^.

This maps escape to ^] and the nullbyte to ^@. (You have probably seen those when opening a binary file in a text editor.)

Unicode

Creating a unicode table andkeeping it updated is out of scope here, besides that: Wikipedia has a List of Unicode Characters and there are the offical Unicode Character Code Charts. (Plus a whole lot of other unicode tables out there.)

Notation Hint: Unicode codepoints (that is the number assigned in the unicode standard, not the binary character representation) are written U+<hex> where <hex> is the codepint number in hexadecimal. Example: U+1f603 for 😃.

There is also a little commandline tool called uni, that is pretty good at providing a searchable unicode table.