UCS, Unicode, and ASCII Character Codes

INTRODUCTION

There are 4 general character set codes and many variants. The first is 7 bit (128 characters) ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) which is the lower 7 bits (high order bit of 0) of the 8 bit (256 character) ASCII code ISO-14962-1997. 8 bit ASCII is the lower 8 bits of the 16 bit (65,536 character) Unicode (high order 8 bits

are 0) [http://www.Unicode.org] Unicode 3.0 was published in February 2000 and is being adopted as ISO/IEC 10646-1:2000 and uses the Unicode Transformation Formats (UTF). Unicode is the lower 16 bits of the 32 bit (4,294,967,296 character) Universal Character Set (UCS) defined by ISO/IEC 10646-1 (the high order 16 bits are 0)

The following ASCII character table is from the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS):[http://www.ccsds.org/blue_books.html] [http://www.ccsds.org/documents/text/CCSDS643.0-B-1.txt] document CCSDS 643.0-B-1: ASCII Encoded English (CCSD0002). Blue Book. Issue 1. November 1992. (Reconfirmed June 1998.)

Char: ASCII Character

Dec: Decimal Representation

Hex: Hexadecimal Representation

Char

Dec 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Hex 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F

Char space ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , . /

Dec 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

Hex 20. 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F

Char @

Dec 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95

Hex 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E 5F

Char `

Dec 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127

Hex 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 6A 6B 6C 6D 6E 6F 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 7A 7B 7C 7D 7E 7F

NUL
SOH STX ETX EOT ENQ ACK BEL BS HT LF VT FF CR SO SI DLE DC1 DC2 DC3 DC4 NAK SYN ETB CAN EM SUB ESC FS GS RS US

A
B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _

a
b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~ DEL

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ?

By SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com, +1 (310) 937-7000 More on document management, classes, and updates at www.ArchiveBuilders.com

Section 5-15 22032v004 Page 1 of 2

UCS, Unicode, and ASCII Character Codes

The following table of control character definitions is from [http://www.jimprice.com/jim-asc.htm] NUL SOH STX ETX EOT ENQ ACK BEL (null) (start of heading) (start of text) (end of text) (end of transmission) - Not the same as ETB (enquiry) (acknowledge) (bell) - Caused teletype machines to ring a bell. Causes a beep in many common terminals and terminal emulation programs. (backspace) - Moves the cursor (or print head) move backwards (left) one space. (horizontal tab) - Moves the cursor (or print head) right to the next tab stop. The spacing of tab stops is dependent on the output device, but is often either 8 or 10. (NL line feed, new line) - Moves the cursor (or print head) to a new line. On Unix systems, moves to a new line AND all the way to the left. (vertical tab) (form feed) - Advances paper to the top of the next page (if the output device is a printer). (carriage return) - Moves the cursor all the way to the left, but does not advance to the next line. (shift out) - Switches output device to alternate character set. (shift in) - Switches output device back to default character set. (data link escape) (device control 1) (device control 2) (device control 3) (device control 4) (negative acknowledge) (synchronous idle) (end of transmission block) - Not the same as EOT CAN EM SUB ESC FS GS RS US DEL (cancel) (end of medium) (substitute) (escape) (file separator) (group separator) (record separator) (unit separator) (delete character) Bio Steve Gilheany, BA in Computer Science, MBA, MLS Specialization in Information Science, CDIA (Certified Document Imaging System Architect), AIIM Master (MIT), and AIIM Laureate (LIT), of Information Technologies, CRM (Certified Records Manager, ARMA) has twenty years experience in document imaging and is a Sr. Systems Engineer at Archive Builders. Dividing this Article into Parts for Serialization If you decide to divide this article into parts please print at least the updates, comments, and
acknowledgements sections in each of the parts along with: by SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com.

Note to Readers Updates and More Detailed Descriptions

Author

BS

Steve Gilheany is a Sr. Systems Engineer at Archive Builders. He has worked in digital document management and document imaging for When using the information in this article, please twenty years.
check the website http://www.ArchiveBuilders.com

TAB

for updates. The version number of this article is just before the page number below. The website also has articles that provide more details on some of the terms and concepts in this article.

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LF

VT FF

CR

SO SI DLE DC1 DC2 DC3 DC4 NAK SYN ETB

Please send your comments via email to SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com. Tel: +1 310-937-7000. Fax: +1 310-937-7001. Also, please let us know where you saw this article. In addition, he has nine years of experience in data center operations and database and computer communications systems design, programming, testing, and software configuration management. Acknowledgements He has an MLS Specialization in Information Reprinted from Archive Planning, Volume 5, Science and an MBA with a concentration in number 4, 2001, Archive Builders' analysis Computer and Information Systems from UCLA, newsletter for document management. a California Adult Education teaching credential, and a BA in Computer Science from the See http://www.ArchiveBuilders.com All trademarks are the property of their respective University of Wisconsin at Madison. His industry certifications include: the CDIA (Certified holders. Document Imaging System Architect) and the AIIM Master (MIT), and AIIM Laureate (LIT), of Information Technologies (from AIIM Note to Editors International, the Association of Information and Image Management, www.AIIM.org), and the Paper 22032v004 CRM (Certified Records Manager) (from the We will continue to update these articles as we get ICRM, the Institute of Certified Records comments. Please contact us for the most current Managers, an affiliate of ARMA International, the version before you publish. Also, please request Association of Records Managers and permission to publish the article. Permission will Administrators, www.ARMA.org). be given freely for most purposes. Contact: Steve Gilheany SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com Archive Builders Tel: +1 (310) 937-7000 Fax: +1 (310) 937-7001 1209 Manhattan Ave. Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 For more information, courses, and papers: Tel: +1 (310) 937-7000 Fax: +1 (310) 937-7001 SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com http://www.ArchiveBuilders.com
Section 5-15 22032v004 Page 2 of 2

His experience in the application of document management and document imaging in industry includes: aerospace, banking, manufacturing, natural resources, petroleum refining, transportation, energy, federal, state, and local government, civil engineering, utilities, entertainment, commercial records centers, archives, non-profit development, education, and administrative, engineering, production, legal, and medical records management. At the same time, he has worked in product management for hypertext, for windows based user interface systems, for computer displays, for engineering drawing, letter size, microform, and color scanning, and for xerographic, photographic, newspaper, engineering drawing, and color printing.

By SteveGilheany@ArchiveBuilders.com, +1 (310) 937-7000 More on document management, classes, and updates at www.ArchiveBuilders.com