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 hex /lib/unicode

     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

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     ASCII(1)                                                 ASCII(1)

          characters printed are not available in the current font.

          The file /lib/unicode contains a table of characters and
          descriptions, sorted in hexadecimal order, suitable 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 039 /lib/unicode
               See the start of the Greek alphabet's encoding in the
               Unicode Standard.

     FILES
          /lib/unicode  table of characters and descriptions.

     SOURCE
          /sys/src/cmd/ascii.c
          /sys/src/cmd/unicode.c

     SEE ALSO
          look(1), tcs(1), utf(6), font(6)

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