# Ruby Programming/ASCII

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To us, a string such as "Hello world" looks like a series of letters with a space in the middle. To your computer, however, every String – in fact, everything – is a series of numbers.

## ASCII

In our example, each character of the String "Hello world" is represented by a number between 0 and 127. For example, to the computer, the capital letter "H" is encoded as the number 72, whereas the space is encoded as the number 32. The ASCII standard, originally developed for sending telegraphs, specifies what number is used to represent each character.
On most Unix-like operating systems, you can view the entire chart of ASCII codes by typing "man ascii" at the shell prompt. Wikipedia's page on ASCII also lists the ASCII codes. Using an ASCII chart, we discover that our string "Hello world" gets converted into the following series of ASCII codes.
You can also determine the ASCII code of a character by using the ? operator in Ruby 1.8.
The question-mark syntax no longer works in Ruby 1.9. Instead, use the ord method.
Notice that the output (below) of this program matches the ASCII codes for the "Hello" part of "Hello world".
To get the ASCII value for a space, we need to use its escape sequence. In fact, we can use any escape sequence with the ? operator.
As above in Ruby >= 1.9 use
instead.
The result:

## Terminal emulators

You may not realize it, but so far, you've been running your Ruby programs inside of a program called a terminal emulator – such as the Microsoft Windows console, the Mac OS X Terminal application, a telnet client, rxvt, or X Window System programs such as xterm.
When your Ruby program prints out the letter "H", it sends the ASCII code for "H" (72) to the terminal emulator, which then draws an "H". When your Ruby program prints out a bell character, it sends a different ASCII code – ASCII code 7 – to the terminal emulator. In this case, the terminal emulator does not draw a symbol, but instead will typically beep or flash briefly. How each of the codes gets interpreted is largely determined by the ASCII standard.

## Other character encodings

The ASCII standard is a type of character encoding. As mentioned above, ASCII only uses numbers 0 through 127 to define characters. There's a lot more characters than that in the world. Other character encoding systems – such as Latin-1, Shift_JIS, and the Unicode Transformation Format (UTF) – have been created to represent a wider variety of characters, including those found in languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, and Japanese.

## ASCII chart

| Binary | Oct | Dec | Hex | Glyph |
| 010 0000 | 040 | 32 | 20 | ? |
| 010 0001 | 041 | 33 | 21 | ! |
| 010 0010 | 042 | 34 | 22 | " |
| 010 0011 | 043 | 35 | 23 | # |
| 010 0100 | 044 | 36 | 24 | $ |
| 010 0101 | 045 | 37 | 25 | % |
| 010 0110 | 046 | 38 | 26 | & |
| 010 0111 | 047 | 39 | 27 | ' |
| 010 1000 | 050 | 40 | 28 | ( |
| 010 1001 | 051 | 41 | 29 | ) |
| 010 1010 | 052 | 42 | 2A | * |
| 010 1011 | 053 | 43 | 2B | + |
| 010 1100 | 054 | 44 | 2C | , |
| 010 1101 | 055 | 45 | 2D | - |
| 010 1110 | 056 | 46 | 2E | . |
| 010 1111 | 057 | 47 | 2F | / |
| 011 0000 | 060 | 48 | 30 | 0 |
| 011 0001 | 061 | 49 | 31 | 1 |
| 011 0010 | 062 | 50 | 32 | 2 |
| 011 0011 | 063 | 51 | 33 | 3 |
| 011 0100 | 064 | 52 | 34 | 4 |
| 011 0101 | 065 | 53 | 35 | 5 |
| 011 0110 | 066 | 54 | 36 | 6 |
| 011 0111 | 067 | 55 | 37 | 7 |
| 011 1000 | 070 | 56 | 38 | 8 |
| 011 1001 | 071 | 57 | 39 | 9 |
| 011 1010 | 072 | 58 | 3A | : |
| 011 1011 | 073 | 59 | 3B | ; |
| 011 1100 | 074 | 60 | 3C | < |
| 011 1101 | 075 | 61 | 3D | = |
| 011 1110 | 076 | 62 | 3E | > |
| 011 1111 | 077 | 63 | 3F | ? |
| Binary | Oct | Dec | Hex | Glyph |
| 100 0000 | 100 | 64 | 40 | @ |
| 100 0001 | 101 | 65 | 41 | A |
| 100 0010 | 102 | 66 | 42 | B |
| 100 0011 | 103 | 67 | 43 | C |
| 100 0100 | 104 | 68 | 44 | D |
| 100 0101 | 105 | 69 | 45 | E |
| 100 0110 | 106 | 70 | 46 | F |
| 100 0111 | 107 | 71 | 47 | G |
| 100 1000 | 110 | 72 | 48 | H |
| 100 1001 | 111 | 73 | 49 | I |
| 100 1010 | 112 | 74 | 4A | J |
| 100 1011 | 113 | 75 | 4B | K |
| 100 1100 | 114 | 76 | 4C | L |
| 100 1101 | 115 | 77 | 4D | M |
| 100 1110 | 116 | 78 | 4E | N |
| 100 1111 | 117 | 79 | 4F | O |
| 101 0000 | 120 | 80 | 50 | P |
| 101 0001 | 121 | 81 | 51 | Q |
| 101 0010 | 122 | 82 | 52 | R |
| 101 0011 | 123 | 83 | 53 | S |
| 101 0100 | 124 | 84 | 54 | T |
| 101 0101 | 125 | 85 | 55 | U |
| 101 0110 | 126 | 86 | 56 | V |
| 101 0111 | 127 | 87 | 57 | W |
| 101 1000 | 130 | 88 | 58 | X |
| 101 1001 | 131 | 89 | 59 | Y |
| 101 1010 | 132 | 90 | 5A | Z |
| 101 1011 | 133 | 91 | 5B | [ |
| 101 1100 | 134 | 92 | 5C | \ |
| 101 1101 | 135 | 93 | 5D | ] |
| 101 1110 | 136 | 94 | 5E | ^ |
| 101 1111 | 137 | 95 | 5F | _ |
| Binary | Oct | Dec | Hex | Glyph |
| 110 0000 | 140 | 96 | 60 | ` |
| 110 0001 | 141 | 97 | 61 | a |
| 110 0010 | 142 | 98 | 62 | b |
| 110 0011 | 143 | 99 | 63 | c |
| 110 0100 | 144 | 100 | 64 | d |
| 110 0101 | 145 | 101 | 65 | e |
| 110 0110 | 146 | 102 | 66 | f |
| 110 0111 | 147 | 103 | 67 | g |
| 110 1000 | 150 | 104 | 68 | h |
| 110 1001 | 151 | 105 | 69 | i |
| 110 1010 | 152 | 106 | 6A | j |
| 110 1011 | 153 | 107 | 6B | k |
| 110 1100 | 154 | 108 | 6C | l |
| 110 1101 | 155 | 109 | 6D | m |
| 110 1110 | 156 | 110 | 6E | n |
| 110 1111 | 157 | 111 | 6F | o |
| 111 0000 | 160 | 112 | 70 | p |
| 111 0001 | 161 | 113 | 71 | q |
| 111 0010 | 162 | 114 | 72 | r |
| 111 0011 | 163 | 115 | 73 | s |
| 111 0100 | 164 | 116 | 74 | t |
| 111 0101 | 165 | 117 | 75 | u |
| 111 0110 | 166 | 118 | 76 | v |
| 111 0111 | 167 | 119 | 77 | w |
| 111 1000 | 170 | 120 | 78 | x |
| 111 1001 | 171 | 121 | 79 | y |
| 111 1010 | 172 | 122 | 7A | z |
| 111 1011 | 173 | 123 | 7B | { |
| 111 1100 | 174 | 124 | 7C | | |
| 111 1101 | 175 | 125 | 7D | } |
| 111 1110 | 176 | 126 | 7E | ~ |