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
