Converting ASCII to Octal
ASCII is one of the oldest character encodings, allowing for computers to represent binary numbers as text. Due to hardware limitations at the time of its inception, ASCII has only 128 code points, and only 95 of them are printable characters. For this reason, most modern computers use UTF-8, which represents the millions of code points covered by Unicode. However, UTF-8 has the same first 128 code points as ASCII, making UTF-8 an ASCII superset.
The steps to convert an ASCII character to an octal string are as follows:
- Obtain the character that you want to convert
- Find its corresponding decimal character using an ASCII table
- Convert the decimal number to a three digit octal number
- Repeat for any other characters
An ASCII table is provided below for your convenience.
Example: Encoding the letter "A" into octal
Using the ASCII table, the conversion is as follows:
"A" = 6510 = 64×1+1 = 64×82+0×81+1×80 = 1018
Alternate Encodings
ASCII is not the only encoding type used today. In its non-extended form, it only has the capability to represent 128 basic characters. To combat this, the UTF-8 encoding was created, capable of representing all 1,112,064 valid Unicode characters. Other, less popular encodings have been created, primarily for the purpose of better representing other script types, or as proprietary encodings for specific machines. This converter uses the UTF-8 encoding.
ASCII Table
ASCII Character | Hexadecimal | Binary | Decimal |
---|---|---|---|
NUL | 00 | 00000000 | 0 |
SOH | 01 | 00000001 | 1 |
STX | 02 | 00000010 | 2 |
ETX | 03 | 00000011 | 3 |
EOT | 04 | 00000100 | 4 |
ENQ | 05 | 00000101 | 5 |
ACK | 06 | 00000110 | 6 |
BEL | 07 | 00000111 | 7 |
BS | 08 | 00001000 | 8 |
HT | 09 | 00001001 | 9 |
LF | 0A | 00001010 | 10 |
VT | 0B | 00001011 | 11 |
FF | 0C | 00001100 | 12 |
CR | 0D | 00001101 | 13 |
SO | 0E | 00001110 | 14 |
SI | 0F | 00001111 | 15 |
DLE | 10 | 00010000 | 16 |
DC1 | 11 | 00010001 | 17 |
DC2 | 12 | 00010010 | 18 |
DC3 | 13 | 00010011 | 19 |
DC4 | 14 | 00010100 | 20 |
NAK | 15 | 00010101 | 21 |
SYN | 16 | 00010110 | 22 |
ETB | 17 | 00010111 | 23 |
CAN | 18 | 00011000 | 24 |
EM | 19 | 00011001 | 25 |
SUB | 1A | 00011010 | 26 |
ESC | 1B | 00011011 | 27 |
FS | 1C | 00011100 | 28 |
GS | 1D | 00011101 | 29 |
RS | 1E | 00011110 | 30 |
US | 1F | 00011111 | 31 |
Space | 20 | 00100000 | 32 |
! | 21 | 00100001 | 33 |
" | 22 | 00100010 | 34 |
# | 23 | 00100011 | 35 |
$ | 24 | 00100100 | 36 |
% | 25 | 00100101 | 37 |
& | 26 | 00100110 | 38 |
' | 27 | 00100111 | 39 |
( | 28 | 00101000 | 40 |
) | 29 | 00101001 | 41 |
* | 2A | 00101010 | 42 |
+ | 2B | 00101011 | 43 |
, | 2C | 00101100 | 44 |
- | 2D | 00101101 | 45 |
. | 2E | 00101110 | 46 |
/ | 2F | 00101111 | 47 |
0 | 30 | 00110000 | 48 |
1 | 31 | 00110001 | 49 |
2 | 32 | 00110010 | 50 |
3 | 33 | 00110011 | 51 |
4 | 34 | 00110100 | 52 |
5 | 35 | 00110101 | 53 |
6 | 36 | 00110110 | 54 |
7 | 37 | 00110111 | 55 |
8 | 38 | 00111000 | 56 |
9 | 39 | 00111001 | 57 |
: | 3A | 00111010 | 58 |
; | 3B | 00111011 | 59 |
< | 3C | 00111100 | 60 |
= | 3D | 00111101 | 61 |
> | 3E | 00111110 | 62 |
? | 3F | 00111111 | 63 |
@ | 40 | 01000000 | 64 |
A | 41 | 01000001 | 65 |
B | 42 | 01000010 | 66 |
C | 43 | 01000011 | 67 |
D | 44 | 01000100 | 68 |
E | 45 | 01000101 | 69 |
F | 46 | 01000110 | 70 |
G | 47 | 01000111 | 71 |
H | 48 | 01001000 | 72 |
I | 49 | 01001001 | 73 |
J | 4A | 01001010 | 74 |
K | 4B | 01001011 | 75 |
L | 4C | 01001100 | 76 |
M | 4D | 01001101 | 77 |
N | 4E | 01001110 | 78 |
O | 4F | 01001111 | 79 |
P | 50 | 01010000 | 80 |
Q | 51 | 01010001 | 81 |
R | 52 | 01010010 | 82 |
S | 53 | 01010011 | 83 |
T | 54 | 01010100 | 84 |
U | 55 | 01010101 | 85 |
V | 56 | 01010110 | 86 |
W | 57 | 01010111 | 87 |
X | 58 | 01011000 | 88 |
Y | 59 | 01011001 | 89 |
Z | 5A | 01011010 | 90 |
[ | 5B | 01011011 | 91 |
\ | 5C | 01011100 | 92 |
] | 5D | 01011101 | 93 |
^ | 5E | 01011110 | 94 |
_ | 5F | 01011111 | 95 |
` | 60 | 01100000 | 96 |
a | 61 | 01100001 | 97 |
b | 62 | 01100010 | 98 |
c | 63 | 01100011 | 99 |
d | 64 | 01100100 | 100 |
e | 65 | 01100101 | 101 |
f | 66 | 01100110 | 102 |
g | 67 | 01100111 | 103 |
h | 68 | 01101000 | 104 |
i | 69 | 01101001 | 105 |
j | 6A | 01101010 | 106 |
k | 6B | 01101011 | 107 |
l | 6C | 01101100 | 108 |
m | 6D | 01101101 | 109 |
n | 6E | 01101110 | 110 |
o | 6F | 01101111 | 111 |
p | 70 | 01110000 | 112 |
q | 71 | 01110001 | 113 |
r | 72 | 01110010 | 114 |
s | 73 | 01110011 | 115 |
t | 74 | 01110100 | 116 |
u | 75 | 01110101 | 117 |
v | 76 | 01110110 | 118 |
w | 77 | 01110111 | 119 |
x | 78 | 01111000 | 120 |
y | 79 | 01111001 | 121 |
z | 7A | 01111010 | 122 |
{ | 7B | 01111011 | 123 |
| | 7C | 01111100 | 124 |
} | 7D | 01111101 | 125 |
~ | 7E | 01111110 | 126 |
DEL | 7F | 01111111 | 127 |