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ascii(1) User Commands ascii(1)
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.
-d Ascii table in decimal.
-x Ascii table in hex.
-o Ascii table in octal.
-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).
* 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.
\character 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, 0ooctal, ooctal, or
\ooctal.
bit pattern A bit pattern (binary) sequence consists of one to
eight binary digit characters (01). To ensure bit
interpretation use 0bbit pattern, bbit pattern or
\bbit pattern.
ISO/ECMA code
A 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 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@snark.thyrsus.com> November 1990 (home
page at http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/home.html). 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.
Open Source