ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) is a standardized character encoding system used to represent text in computers and electronic devices. It assigns a numerical value to each character, making it easier for machines to store and manipulate text.
Key Features of ASCII:
1. Character Set:
• Includes letters (A-Z, a-z), numbers (0-9), punctuation marks, and control characters.
• Standard ASCII uses 7 bits, allowing 128 unique characters.
2. Control Characters:
• Characters 0–31 are non-printable and used for text control (e.g., newline, tab).
3. Printable Characters:
• Characters 32–126 are printable, such as letters, numbers, and symbols.
4. Applications:
• Basis for text in programming.
• Widely used in file encoding, communication protocols, and more.
Example:
Decimal Hexadecimal Character Description
65 41 A Uppercase A
97 61 a Lowercase a
32 20 Space Space
ASCII has been extended over time (e.g., UTF-8) to include more characters and symbols for different languages.