ASCII(1) ascii ASCII(1)
Development Tools Development Tools
07/31/2017
NAME
ascii - report character aliases
SYNOPSIS
ascii [-dxohv] [-t] [char-alias...]
OPTIONS
Called with no options, ascii behaves like `ascii -h'. Options are as
follows:
-t
Script-friendly mode, emits only ISO/decimal/hex/octal/binary
encodings of the character.
-s
Parse multiple characters. Convenient way of parsing strings.
-a
Print in vertical aspect (4 columns by 16 rows) rather than 16x4.
This option combines only with -d -o -x -b and must precede them.
-d
Ascii table in decimal.
-x
Ascii table in hex.
-o
Ascii table in octal.
-b
Ascii table in binary.
-h, -?
Show summary of options and a simple ASCII table.
-v
Show version of program.
DESCRIPTION
Characters in the ASCII set can have many aliases, depending on
context. A character's possible names include:
+ Its bit pattern (binary representation).
+ Its hex, decimal and octal representations.
+ Its teletype mnemonic and caret-notation form (for control chars).
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ASCII(1) ascii ASCII(1)
Development Tools Development Tools
07/31/2017
+ Its backlash-escape form in C (for some control chars).
+ Its printed form (for printables).
+ Its full ISO official name in English.
+ Its ISO/ECMA code table reference.
+ Its name as an HTML/SGML entity.
+ Slang and other names in wide use for it among hackers.
This utility accepts command-line strings and tries to interpret them
as one of the above. When it finds a value, it prints all of the names
of the character. The constructs in the following list can be used to
specify character values. If an argument could be interpreted in two
or more ways, names for all the different characters it might be are
dumped.
character
Any character not described by one of the following conventions
represents the character itself.
^character
A caret followed by a character.
\[abfnrtv0]
A backslash followed by certain special characters (abfnrtv).
mnemonic
An ASCII teletype mnemonic.
hexadecimal
A hexadecimal (hex) sequence consists of one or two
case-insensitive hex digit characters (01234567890abcdef). To
ensure hex interpretation use hexh, 0xhex, xhex or \xhex.
decimal
A decimal sequence consists of one, two or three decimal digit
characters (0123456789). To ensure decimal interpretation use
\0ddecimal, ddecimal, or \ddecimal.
octal
An octal sequence consists of one, two or three octal digit
characters (01234567). To ensure octal interpretation use
\<octal>, 0o<octal>, o<octal>, or \o<octal>.
bit pattern
A bit pattern (binary) sequence consists of one to eight binary
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ASCII(1) ascii ASCII(1)
Development Tools Development Tools
07/31/2017
digit characters (01). To ensure bit interpretation use 0b<bit
pattern>, b<bit pattern> or \b<bit pattern>.
ISO/ECMA code
An ISO/ECMA code sequence consists of one or two decimal digit
characters, a slash, and one or two decimal digit characters.
name
An official ASCII or (unofficial) slang name.
The slang names recognized and printed out are from a rather
comprehensive list that first appeared on USENET in early 1990 and has
been continuously updated since. Mnemonics recognized and printed
include the official ASCII set, some official ISO names (where those
differ) and a few common-use alternatives (such as NL for LF).
HTML/SGML entity names are also printed when applicable. All
comparisons are case-insensitive, and dashes are mapped to spaces. Any
unrecognized arguments or out of range values are silently ignored.
Note that the -s option will not recognize 'long' names, as it cannot
differentiate them from other parts of the string.
For correct results, be careful to stringize or quote shell
metacharacters in arguments (especially backslash).
This utility is particularly handy for interpreting cc(1)'s ugly octal
`invalid-character' messages, or when coding anything to do with
serial communications. As a side effect it serves as a handy
base-converter for random 8-bit values.
AUTHOR
Eric S. Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>; November 1990 (home page at
m[blue]http://www.catb.org/~esr/m[]). Reproduce, use, and modify as
you like as long as you don't remove this authorship notice. Ioannis
E. Tambouras <ioannis@debian.org> added command options and minor
enhancements. Brian J. Ginsbach <ginsbach@sgi.com> fixed several bugs
and expanded the man page. David N. Welton <davidw@efn.org> added the
-s option. Matej Vela corrected the ISO names. Dave Capella
contributed the idea of listing HTML/SGML entities.
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