.TH ASCII 1 
.SH NAME
ascii \- interpret ASCII characters
.SH SYNOPSIS
ascii [
.B "\-oxd | \-b\f2n\fP
] [
.B \-nct
] [
.B \-e
] [
.I text
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I ascii
prints the ASCII values corresponding to characters and
.I vice
.IR versa .
The values are interpreted in a settable numeric base;
.B \-o
specifies octal (the default),
.B \-d
decimal,
.B \-x
hexadecimal, and
.B \-b\f2n\fP
base
.I n .
.PP
With no arguments,
.I ascii
reproduces /usr/pub/ascii in the specified base.
Any given characters of
.I text
are converted to their ASCII values, one per line.
If, however, the first argument of
.I text
is a valid number in the specified base, it is printed as plain text
(control characters are printed as they appear in /usr/pub/ascii).
The option
.B \-n
forces the output to numeric form and
.B \-c
forces the output to printable characters.
The option
.B \-t
converts, without interpretation, from numbers to text.
Finally,
.B \-e
forces the following arguments to be interpreted as
.I text .
.SH EXAMPLES
.TP
ascii \-d
Print the ASCII table base 10.
.TP
ascii p
Print the octal value of `p'.
.TP
ascii 160
Show which character is octal 160.
.SH "SEE ALSO
ascii(7)