What is ASCII?
ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a character encoding standard that represents text in computers and communication equipment. Developed in the 1960s, ASCII defines 128 characters including letters, digits, punctuation marks, and control characters.
Understanding ASCII Character Encoding
ASCII uses 7 bits to represent each character, allowing for 128 different characters (0-127). The character set is divided into several categories:
- Control Characters (0-31): Non-printable characters used for text formatting and device control
- Printable Characters (32-126): Visible characters including letters, numbers, and symbols
- Delete Character (127): Originally used to delete characters on paper tape
Features of Our ASCII Table
Our comprehensive ASCII reference table provides:
- Multiple Number Systems: View character codes in decimal, hexadecimal, binary, and octal formats
- Smart Filtering: Filter by character type (control, printable, letters, digits, symbols)
- Search Functionality: Quickly find characters by code, value, or description
- Copy Features: Copy individual characters or export the entire table as CSV
- Detailed Descriptions: Understand what each character represents and how it's used
Common ASCII Character Ranges
📝 Control Characters (0-31)
These are non-printable characters that were originally designed to control devices like printers and terminals. Common examples include TAB (9), Line Feed (10), and Carriage Return (13).
🔤 Letters (65-90, 97-122)
Uppercase letters A-Z are represented by codes 65-90, while lowercase letters a-z use codes 97-122. The difference between uppercase and lowercase is exactly 32.
🔢 Digits (48-57)
The digit characters 0-9 are represented by ASCII codes 48-57. This makes it easy to convert between character digits and their numeric values.
🔣 Symbols and Punctuation
Various symbols, punctuation marks, and special characters fill the remaining printable character space, including common programming symbols like brackets, operators, and delimiters.
Programming Applications
Understanding ASCII is essential for many programming tasks:
- Character Manipulation: Converting between characters and their numeric codes
- Data Validation: Checking if input contains only specific character types
- Text Processing: Implementing case conversion, sorting, and filtering
- Protocol Implementation: Many network protocols use ASCII control characters
- File Formats: Understanding text file encoding and line endings
Historical Context
ASCII was developed in the 1960s and became the foundation for character encoding in computing. While modern systems often use Unicode (which includes ASCII as a subset), ASCII remains important for understanding character encoding fundamentals and working with legacy systems.
How to Use This ASCII Table
- Browse the Table: Scroll through the complete ASCII character set
- Filter by Type: Use the dropdown to show only specific character categories
- Search Characters: Find specific characters by typing in the search box
- Copy Characters: Click the copy button next to any character to copy it
- Export Data: Use the "Export CSV" button to download the filtered table
Try Our ASCII Table Tool
Whether you're debugging character encoding issues, learning about text representation, or need a quick reference for programming, our ASCII table provides all the information you need in an easy-to-use format.