Unlocking the Secrets of ASCII: A World of Numeric Codes
What is ASCII?
In the digital realm, computers communicate in a language that’s foreign to humans. To bridge this gap, a standard was born: ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange). This ingenious system assigns a unique numeric value to each character and symbol, allowing computers to store and manipulate them with ease. For instance, the letter ‘A’ is represented by the ASCII value 65.
Cracking the Code with Python
To harness the power of ASCII, we can utilize Python’s built-in functions. Let’s dive into an example that demonstrates how to convert a character to its corresponding ASCII value using the ord() function.
c = 'A'
print("The ASCII value of '" + c + "' is", ord(c))
Deciphering Unicode
But ASCII is just the tip of the iceberg. Unicode, another encoding technique, provides a unique number to over 100,000 characters from hundreds of scripts, far surpassing ASCII’s 128-character limit. The ord() function returns the Unicode code point of a character, making it a powerful tool in our coding arsenal.
Reversing the Process: From ASCII to Character
Now, let’s take it a step further. Using the chr() function, we can retrieve a character from its ASCII value. This built-in function is the perfect complement to ord(), allowing us to seamlessly convert between characters and their numeric representations.
ascii_value = 65
print("The character represented by ASCII value", ascii_value, "is", chr(ascii_value))
Your Turn: Experiment and Explore
The world of ASCII and Unicode is vast and fascinating. Take the reins and modify the code above to uncover the secrets of these encoding techniques. With Python’s built-in functions at your disposal, the possibilities are endless!