The ASCII Character Set
- ASCII stands for the "American Standard Code for Information Interchange". It was designed in the early 60's, as a standard character-set for computers and hardware devices like teleprinters and tapedrives.
- ASCII is a 7-bit character set containing 128 characters.
- It contains the numbers from 0-9, the uppercase and lowercase English letters from A to Z, and some special characters.
- The character-sets used in modern computers, HTML, and Internet are all based on ASCII.
- The following table lists the 128 ASCII characters and their equivalent HTML entity codes.
ASCII Printable Characters
| ASCII Character | HTML Entity Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
|   | space | |
| ! | ! | exclamation mark |
| " | " | quotation mark |
| # | # | number sign |
| $ | $ | dollar sign |
| % | % | percent sign |
| & | & | ampersand |
| ' | ' | apostrophe |
| ( | ( | left parenthesis |
| ) | ) | right parenthesis |
| * | * | asterisk |
| + | + | plus sign |
| , | , | comma |
| - | - | hyphen |
| . | . | period |
| / | / | slash |
| 0 | 0 | digit 0 |
| 1 | 1 | digit 1 |
| 2 | 2 | digit 2 |
| 3 | 3 | digit 3 |
| 4 | 4 | digit 4 |
| 5 | 5 | digit 5 |
| 6 | 6 | digit 6 |
| 7 | 7 | digit 7 |
| 8 | 8 | digit 8 |
| 9 | 9 | digit 9 |
| : | : | colon |
| ; | ; | semicolon |
| < | < | less-than |
| = | = | equals-to |
| > | > | greater-than |
| ? | ? | question mark |
| @ | @ | at sign |
| A | A | uppercase A |
| B | B | uppercase B |
| C | C | uppercase C |
| D | D | uppercase D |
| E | E | uppercase E |
| F | F | uppercase F |
| G | G | uppercase G |
| H | H | uppercase H |
| I | I | uppercase I |
| J | J | uppercase J |
| K | K | uppercase K |
| L | L | uppercase L |
| M | M | uppercase M |
| N | N | uppercase N |
| O | O | uppercase O |
| P | P | uppercase P |
| Q | Q | uppercase Q |
| R | R | uppercase R |
| S | S | uppercase S |
| T | T | uppercase T |
| U | U | uppercase U |
| V | V | uppercase V |
| W | W | uppercase W |
| X | X | uppercase X |
| Y | Y | uppercase Y |
| Z | Z | uppercase Z |
| [ | [ | left square bracket |
| \ | \ | backslash |
| ] | ] | right square bracket |
| ^ | ^ | caret |
| _ | _ | underscore |
| ` | ` | grave accent |
| a | a | lowercase a |
| b | b | lowercase b |
| c | c | lowercase c |
| d | d | lowercase d |
| e | e | lowercase e |
| f | f | lowercase f |
| g | g | lowercase g |
| h | h | lowercase h |
| i | i | lowercase i |
| j | j | lowercase j |
| k | k | lowercase k |
| l | l | lowercase l |
| m | m | lowercase m |
| n | n | lowercase n |
| o | o | lowercase o |
| p | p | lowercase p |
| q | q | lowercase q |
| r | r | lowercase r |
| s | s | lowercase s |
| t | t | lowercase t |
| u | u | lowercase u |
| v | v | lowercase v |
| w | w | lowercase w |
| x | x | lowercase x |
| y | y | lowercase y |
| z | z | lowercase z |
| { | { | left curly brace |
| | | | | vertical bar |
| } | } | right curly brace |
| ~ | ~ | tilde |
ASCII Device Control Characters
The ASCII device control characters were originally designed to control hardware devices.
Control characters have nothing to do inside an HTML document.
| ASCII Character | HTML Entity Code | Description |
|---|---|---|
| NUL | � | null character |
| SOH |  | start of header |
| STX |  | start of text |
| ETX |  | end of text |
| EOT |  | end of transmission |
| ENQ |  | enquiry |
| ACK |  | acknowledge |
| BEL |  | bell (ring) |
| BS |  | backspace |
| HT | 	 | horizontal tab |
| LF | | line feed |
| VT |  | vertical tab |
| FF |  | form feed |
| CR | | carriage return |
| SO |  | shift out |
| SI |  | shift in |
| DLE |  | data link escape |
| DC1 |  | device control 1 |
| DC2 |  | device control 2 |
| DC3 |  | device control 3 |
| DC4 |  | device control 4 |
| NAK |  | negative acknowledge |
| SYN |  | synchronize |
| ETB |  | end transmission block |
| CAN |  | cancel |
| EM |  | end of medium |
| SUB |  | substitute |
| ESC |  | escape |
| FS |  | file separator |
| GS |  | group separator |
| RS |  | record separator |
| US |  | unit separator |
| DEL |  | delete (rubout) |
