ASCII Character Set for Linux* and OS X*

This topic describes the ASCII character set that is available on Linux* and OS X* operating systems.

The ASCII character set contains characters with decimal values 0 through 127. The first half of each of the numbered columns identifies the character as you would enter it on a terminal or as you would see it on a printer. Except for SP and HT, the characters with names are nonprintable. In the figure, the characters with names are defined as follows:

NUL	Null	DC1	Device Control 1 (XON)
SOH	Start of Heading	DC2	Device Control 2
STX	Start of Text	DC3	Device Control 1 (XOFF)
ETX	End of Text	DC4	Device Control 4
EOT	End of Transmission	NAK	Negative Acknowledge
ENQ	Enquiry	SYN	Synchronous Idle
ACK	Acknowledge	ETB	End of Transmission Block
BEL	Bell	CAN	Cancel
BS	Backspace	EM	End of Medium
HT	Horizontal Tab	SUB	Substitute
LF	Line Feed	ESC	Escape
VT	Vertical Tab	FS	File Separator
FF	Form Feed	GS	Group Separator
CR	Carriage Return	RS	Record Separator
SO	Shift Out	US	Unit Separator
SI	Shift In	SP	Space
DLE	Data Link Escape	DEL	Delete

The remaining half of each column identifies the character by the binary value of the byte; the value is stated in three radixes—octal, decimal, and hexadecimal. For example, the uppercase letter A has, under ASCII conventions, a storage value of hexadecimal 41 (a bit configuration of 01000001), equivalent to 101 in octal notation and 65 in decimal notation.

ASCII Character Set (L*X, M*X)