ASCII Table Reference

What is ASCII?

ASCII stands for American Standard Code for Information Interchange. It's a character encoding standard that represents text characters using numeric codes. The standard ASCII table includes 128 characters (0-127), with extended ASCII adding another 128 characters (128-255). Each character is assigned a unique decimal number that can also be represented in hexadecimal, octal, and binary formats.

ASCII includes control characters (0-31 and 127) used for formatting and device control, and printable characters (32-126) like letters, numbers, and symbols. Understanding ASCII codes is essential for programmers, especially when working with data encoding, escape sequences, and character manipulation.

How to Use This Tool

Search: Type a character, decimal code, hexadecimal code, or character name to instantly find it in the table.

Filter: Use the filter buttons to view all characters, printable characters only, or control characters only.

Copy: Click any row in the table to copy the character to your clipboard. A confirmation message will appear when copied.

Explore: Browse both the standard ASCII table (0-127) and the extended ASCII table (128-255). Hover over rows to highlight them for easier reading.

Common Uses

• Escape Sequences: Find codes for newline (\n, 10), tab (\t, 9), carriage return (\r, 13), and other control characters.
• Character Codes: Quickly reference numeric codes for letters (A-Z: 65-90, a-z: 97-122), digits (0-9: 48-57), and special characters.
• Data Encoding: Convert between number formats (decimal, hex, octal, binary) when working with character encoding.
• Debugging: Identify unexpected characters in text data by looking up their ASCII codes and descriptions.
• Programming: Reference ASCII values when writing character validation, string manipulation, or encoding/decryption code.

What's the difference between ASCII and Extended ASCII?

Standard ASCII uses codes 0-127, covering English letters, digits, punctuation, and control characters. Extended ASCII uses codes 128-255 to add accented letters, box-drawing characters, and mathematical symbols. Extended ASCII varies by code page, but our reference shows the most common CP437 (DOS) interpretation.

What are control characters?

Control characters (codes 0-31 and 127) are non-printable characters used to control devices like printers and terminals. Examples include Tab (9), Newline (10), and Escape (27). They don't display as visible characters but are essential for formatting and device communication in programming.

How do I use ASCII codes in my code?

Most programming languages let you use ASCII codes with character functions. In JavaScript, use String.fromCharCode(65) to get 'A'. In Python, use chr(65). You can also use escape sequences like \n for newline (10) or \t for tab (9) directly in strings.

Why is ASCII still important?

ASCII remains fundamental to computing. UTF-8, the modern text encoding standard, is backwards-compatible with ASCII. Understanding ASCII codes helps with programming, debugging, data transfer, and working with character data across different systems and languages.

Can I copy characters from this table?

Yes! Click any row to copy the character to your clipboard. A confirmation message will appear. This is useful for quickly inserting special characters, referencing codes in your code, or understanding character values in your work.

What do the different number formats mean?

Decimal: Base-10 (0-127 for standard ASCII). Hex: Base-16, often prefixed with 0x. Octal: Base-8, often prefixed with 0. Binary: Base-2. All represent the same ASCII code in different formats useful for different programming contexts.