ASCII(1) ASCII(1)
NAME
ascii, unicode - interpret ASCII, Unicode characters
SYNOPSIS
ascii [ -8cnt ] [ -dox | -b n ] [ text ]
unicode hexmin-hexmax
unicode [ -t ] hex [ ... ]
unicode [ -n ] characters
look -t ';' -b 16 hex /lib/ucd/UnicodeData.txt
DESCRIPTION
Ascii prints the ASCII values corresponding to characters
and vice versa; under the -8 option, the ISO Latin-1 exten-
sions (codes 0200-0377) are included. The values are inter-
preted in a settable numeric base; -o specifies octal, -d
decimal, -x hexadecimal (the default), and -bn base n.
With no arguments, ascii prints a table of the character set
in the specified base. Characters of text are converted to
their ASCII values, one per line. If, however, the first
text argument is a valid number in the specified base, con-
version goes the opposite way. Control characters are
printed as two- or three-character mnemonics. Other options
are:
-n Force numeric output.
-c Force character output.
-t Convert from numbers to running text; do not interpret
control characters or insert newlines.
Unicode is similar; it converts between UTF and character
values from the Unicode Standard (see utf(6)). If given a
range of hexadecimal numbers, unicode prints a table of the
specified Unicode characters - their values and UTF repre-
sentations. Otherwise it translates from UTF to numeric
value or vice versa, depending on the appearance of the sup-
plied text; the -n option forces numeric output to avoid
ambiguity with numeric characters. If converting to UTF ,
the characters are printed one per line unless the -t flag
is set, in which case the output is a single string contain-
ing only the specified characters. Unlike ascii, unicode
treats no characters specially.
The output of ascii and unicode may be unhelpful if the
Page 1 Plan 9 (printed 12/22/24)
ASCII(1) ASCII(1)
characters printed are not available in the current font.
The file /lib/ucd/UnicodeData.txt contains a table of char-
acters and descriptions, sorted in hexadecimal order, suit-
able for look(1) on the lower case hex values of characters.
EXAMPLES
ascii -d
Print the ASCII table base 10.
unicode p
Print the hex value of `p'.
unicode 2200-22f1
Print a table of miscellaneous mathematical symbols.
look 0039 /lib/ucd/UnicodeData.txt
See the start of the Greek alphabet's encoding in the
Unicode Standard.
FILES
/lib/ucd/UnicodeData.txt table of characters and descrip-
tions.
SOURCE
/sys/src/cmd/ascii.c
/sys/src/cmd/unicode.c
SEE ALSO
look(1), tcs(1), utf(6), font(6)
Page 2 Plan 9 (printed 12/22/24)