# Non-printable ASCII characters list

> A reference table of all the non-printable ASCII characters, listing their decimal and hexadecimal codes alongside names like NULL, BEL, TAB, and ESC.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2020-01-26 | Topics: [Computer](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/computers/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/non-printable-ascii-characters/

||||
|--- |--- |--- |
|DEC|HEX|CHARACTER|
|0|0|NULL|
|1|1|START OF HEADING (SOH)|
|2|2|START OF TEXT (STX)|
|3|3|END OF TEXT (ETX)|
|4|4|END OF TRANSMISSION (EOT)|
|5|5|END OF QUERY (ENQ)|
|6|6|ACKNOWLEDGE (ACK)|
|7|7|BEEP (BEL)|23|17
|8|8|BACKSPACE (BS)|
|9|9|HORIZONTAL TAB (HT)|
|10|A|LINE FEED (LF)|
|11|B|VERTICAL TAB (VT)|
|12|C|FF (FORM FEED)|
|13|D|CR (CARRIAGE RETURN)|
|14|E|SO (SHIFT OUT)|
|15|F|SI (SHIFT IN)|
|16|10|DATA LINK ESCAPE (DLE)|
|17|11|DEVICE CONTROL 1 (DC1)|
|18|12|DEVICE CONTROL 2 (DC2)|
|19|13|DEVICE CONTROL 3 (DC3)|
|20|14|DEVICE CONTROL 4 (DC4)|
|21|15|NEGATIVE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT (NAK)|
|22|16|SYNCHRONIZE (SYN)|
|23|17|END OF TRANSMISSION BLOCK (ETB)|
|24|18|CANCEL (CAN)|
|25|19|END OF MEDIUM (EM)|
|26|1A|SUBSTITUTE (SUB)|
|27|1B|ESCAPE (ESC)|
|28|1C|FILE SEPARATOR (FS) RIGHT ARROW|
|29|1D|GROUP SEPARATOR (GS) LEFT ARROW|
|30|1E|RECORD SEPARATOR (RS) UP ARROW|
|31|1F|UNIT SEPARATOR (US) DOWN ARROW|

When you need to write these as `\x` or `\u` escapes in code, I built a free [string escape tool](https://flaviocopes.com/tools/string-escape/) that converts between literal text and escaped strings.