From: Eric S. Raymond Date: Mon, 21 Nov 1994 20:40:10 +0000 (+0000) Subject: Initial revision X-Git-Tag: 2-1~20 X-Git-Url: http://thyrsus.com/gitweb/?a=commitdiff_plain;h=d1f95a232f9bdc55c38cbcdf322d523987499f7a;p=ascii.git Initial revision --- diff --git a/ascii.xml b/ascii.xml new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7848cc9 --- /dev/null +++ b/ascii.xml @@ -0,0 +1,52 @@ +.TH ascii 1 +.SH NAME +ascii -- report character aliases +.SH SYNOPSIS +ascii char-alias... +.SH DESCRIPTION +Characters in the ASCII set can have many aliases, depending on context. A +character's possible names include: +.TP 3 +* +Its bit pattern +.TP 3 +* +Its hex, decimal and octal representations. +.TP 3 +* +Its teletype mnemonic and caret-notation form (for control chars) +.TP 3 +* +Its backlash-escape form in C (for some control chars). +.TP 3 +* +Its printed form (for printables). +.TP 3 +* +Its full official name in English. +.TP 3 +* +Slang and other names in wide use for it among hackers. +.P +This utility accepts command-line strings and tries to interpret them as +one of the above. When it finds a value, it prints \fIall\fR of the names +of the character. If an argument could be interpreted in two or more +ways, names for all the different characters it might be are dumped. +.P +This utility is particularly handy for interpreting cc(1)'s ugly +octal `invalid-character' messages, or when coding anything to do with serial +communications. As a side effect it serves as a handy base-converter +for random 8-bit values. +.P +For correct results, be careful to stringize or quote shell metacharacters +in arguments (especially backslash). +.P +The slang names recognized and printed out are from a rather comprehensive +list that appeared on USENET in early 1990. Mnemonics recognized and printed +include the official ASCII set, some official ISO names (where those differ) +and a few common-use alternatives (such as NL for LF). All comparisons are +case-insensitive, and dashes are mapped to spaces. +.SH AUTHOR +Eric S. Raymond November 1990. Reproduce, use, +and modify as you like as long as you don't remove this authorship notice. +