C0 and C1 control codes


The C0 and C1 control code or control character sets define control codes for use in text by computer systems that use ASCII and derivatives of ASCII. The codes represent additional information about the text, such as the position of a cursor, an instruction to start a new line, or a message that the text has been received.
C0 codes are the range 00HEX–1FHEX and the default C0 set was originally defined in ISO 646. C1 codes are the range 80HEX–9FHEX and the default C1 set was originally defined in ECMA-48. The ISO/IEC 2022 system of specifying control and graphic characters allows other C0 and C1 sets to be available for specialized applications, but they are rarely used.

C0 controls

defines 32 control characters, plus the DEL character. This large number of codes was desirable at the time, as multi-byte controls would require implementation of a state machine in the terminal, which was very difficult with contemporary electronics and mechanical terminals.
Only a few codes have maintained their use: BEL, ESC, and the format effector characters BS, HT, LF, VT, FF, and CR. Others are unused or have acquired different meanings such as NUL being the C string terminator. Some data transfer protocols such as ANPA-1312, Kermit, and XMODEM do make extensive use of SOH, STX, ETX, EOT, ACK, NAK and SYN for purposes approximating their original definitions; and some file formats use the "Information Separators" such as the Unix info format and Python's string method.
The names of some codes were changed in ISO 6429:1992 to be neutral with respect to writing direction. The abbreviations used were not changed, as the standard had already specified that those would remain unchanged when the standard is translated to other languages. In this table both new and old names are shown for the renamed controls.
Unicode provides Control Pictures that can replace C0 control characters to make them visible on screen. However caret notation is used more often.

C1 controls

In 1973, ECMA-35 and ISO 2022 attempted to define a method so an 8-bit "extended ASCII" code could be converted to a corresponding 7-bit code, and vice versa. In a 7-bit environment, the Shift Out would change the meaning of the 96 bytes through , to be the characters that an 8-bit environment would print if it used the same code with the high bit set. This meant that the range through could not be printed in a 7-bit environment, thus it was decided that no alternative character set could use them, and that these codes should be additional control codes, which become known as the C1 control codes. To allow a 7-bit environment to use these new controls, the sequences ESC @ through ESC _ were to be considered equivalent. The later ISO 8859 standards abandoned support for 7-bit codes, but preserved this range of control characters.
The first C1 control code set to be registered for use with ISO 2022 was DIN 31626, a specialised set for bibliographic use which was registered in 1979.
The more common general-use ISO/IEC 6429 set was registered in 1983, although the ECMA-48 specification upon which it was based had been first published in 1976 and JIS X 0211. Symbolic names defined by and early drafts of ISO 10646, but not in ISO/IEC 6429 are also used.
Except for and in EUC-JP text, and in text transcoded from EBCDIC, the 8-bit forms of these codes were almost never used., and are used to control text terminals and terminal emulators, but almost always by using their 7-bit escape code representations. Nowadays if these codes are encountered it is far more likely they are intended to be printing characters from that position of Windows-1252 or Mac OS Roman.
Except for, Unicode does not provide a "control picture" for any of these. There is no well-known variation of Caret notation for them either.
AbbrNameDescription
@12880PADPadding CharacterProposed as a "padding" or "high byte" for single-byte characters to make them two bytes long for easier interoperability with multiple byte characters. Extended Unix Code occasionally uses this.
A12981HOPHigh Octet PresetProposed to set the high byte of a sequence of multiple byte characters so they only need one byte each, as a simple form of data compression.
B13082BPHBreak Permitted HereFollows a graphic character where a line break is permitted. Roughly equivalent to a soft hyphen or zero-width space except it does not define what is printed at the line break.
C13183NBHNo Break HereFollows the graphic character that is not to be broken. See also word joiner.
D13284INDIndexMove down one line without moving horizontally, to eliminate ambiguity about the meaning of LF.
E13385NELNext LineEquivalent to CR+LF, to match the EBCDIC control character.
F13486SSAStart of Selected AreaUsed by block-oriented terminals. In xterm moves to the lower-left corner of the screen, since certain software assumes this behaviour.
G13587ESAEnd of Selected AreaUsed by block-oriented terminals. In xterm moves to the lower-left corner of the screen, since certain software assumes this behaviour.
H13688HTSSet a tab stop at the current position.
I13789HTJRight-justify the text since the last tab against the next tab stop.
J1388AVTSSet a vertical tab stop.
K1398BPLDTo produce subscripts and superscripts in ISO/IEC 6429.
Subscripts use PLD text PLU while superscripts use PLU text PLD.
L1408CPLUTo produce subscripts and superscripts in ISO/IEC 6429.
Subscripts use PLD text PLU while superscripts use PLU text PLD.
M1418DRIMove up one line.
N1428ESS2Next character is from the G2 or G3 sets, respectively.
O1438FSS3Next character is from the G2 or G3 sets, respectively.
P14490DCSDevice Control StringFollowed by a string of printable characters and format effectors, terminated by ST. Xterm defined a number of these.
Q14591PU1Private Use 1Reserved for private function agreed on between the sender and the recipient of the data.
R14692PU2Private Use 2Reserved for private function agreed on between the sender and the recipient of the data.
S14793STSSet Transmit State
T14894CCHCancel characterDestructive backspace, to eliminate ambiguity about meaning of.
U14995MWMessage Waiting
V15096SPAStart of Protected AreaUsed by block-oriented terminals.
W15197EPAEnd of Protected AreaUsed by block-oriented terminals.
X15298SOSStart of StringFollowed by a control string terminated by which may contain any character except SOS or ST.
Y15399SGC, SGCISingle Graphic Character IntroducerIntended to allow an arbitrary Unicode character to be printed; it would be followed by 4 bytes to define a 32-bit code point, most likely big-endian.
Z1549ASCISingle Character IntroducerTo be followed by a single printable character or format effector, and to print it as ASCII no matter what graphic or control sets were in use.
1579DOSCOperating System CommandFollowed by a string of printable characters and format effectors, terminated by ST, intended for use to allow in-band signaling of protocol information, but rarely used for that purpose.
Some terminal emulators, including xterm, use OSC sequences for setting the window title and changing the colour palette. They may also support terminating an OSC sequence with instead of ST. Kermit used APC to transmit commands.
^1589EPMPrivacy MessageFollowed by a string of printable characters and format effectors, terminated by ST, intended for use to allow in-band signaling of protocol information, but rarely used for that purpose.
Some terminal emulators, including xterm, use OSC sequences for setting the window title and changing the colour palette. They may also support terminating an OSC sequence with instead of ST. Kermit used APC to transmit commands.
_1599FAPCApplication Program CommandFollowed by a string of printable characters and format effectors, terminated by ST, intended for use to allow in-band signaling of protocol information, but rarely used for that purpose.
Some terminal emulators, including xterm, use OSC sequences for setting the window title and changing the colour palette. They may also support terminating an OSC sequence with instead of ST. Kermit used APC to transmit commands.

Other control code sets

The ISO/IEC 2022 extension mechanism allowed escape sequences to change the C0 and C1 sets. The standard C0 control character set shown above is chosen with the sequence and the above C1 set chosen with the sequence.
Several official and unofficial alternatives have been defined, but this is pretty much obsolete. Most were forced to retain a good deal of compatibility with the ASCII controls for interoperability. The standard makes ESC, SP and DEL "fixed" coded characters, which are available in their ASCII locations in all encodings that conform to the standard. It also specifies that if a C0 set included transmission control codes, they must be encoded at their ASCII locations and could not be put in a C1 set, and any new transmission controls must be in a C1 set.

Alternative C0 character sets

  • ANPA-1312, a text markup language used for news transmission, replaces several C0 control characters.
  • IPTC 7901, the newer international version of the above, has its own variations.
  • Videotex has a completely different set.
  • Teletext also defines a set similar to Videotex.
  • T.61/T.51, and others replaced EM and GS with SS2 and SS3 so these functions could be used in a 7-bit environment without resorting to escape sequences.
  • Some sets replaced FS with SS2,.
  • The now-withdrawn JIS C 6225, designated JIS X 0207 in later sources. replaced FS with CEX or "Control Extension" which introduces control sequences for vertical text behaviour, superscripts and subscripts and for transmitting custom character graphics.

Alternative C1 character sets

  • A specialized C1 control code set is registered for bibliographic use, such as by MARC-8.
  • Various specialised C1 control code sets are registered for use by Videotex formats.
  • The Stratus VOS operating system uses a C1 set called the NLS control set. It includes SS1 through SS15 controls, used to invoke individual characters from pre-defined supplementary character sets, in a similar manner to the single-shift mechanism of ISO/IEC 2022. The only single-shift controls defined by ISO/IEC 2022 are SS2 and SS3; these are retained in the VOS set at their original code points and function the same way.
  • EBCDIC#Definitions of non-ASCII [EBCDIC controls|EBCDIC] defines up to 29 additional control codes besides those present in ASCII. When translating EBCDIC to Unicode, these codes are mapped to C1 control characters in a manner specified by IBM's Character Data Representation Architecture. Although the New Line does translate to the ISO/IEC 6429 , the remainder of the control codes do not correspond. For example, the EBCDIC control and the ECMA-48 control are both used to begin a superscript or end a subscript, but are not mapped to one another. Extended-ASCII-mapped EBCDIC can therefore be regarded as having its own C1 set, although it is not registered with the ISO-IR registry for ISO/IEC 2022.

Unicode

Unicode reserves the 65 code points described above for compatibility with the C0 and C1 control codes, giving them the general category . These are:
Unicode only specifies semantics for the C0 format controls HT, LF, VT, FF, and CR ; the C0 information separators FS, GS, RS, US ; and the C1 control NEL. The rest of the codes are transparent to Unicode and their meanings are left to higher-level protocols, with ISO/IEC 6429 suggested as a default.
Unicode includes many additional format effector characters besides these, such as marks, embeds, isolates and pops for explicit bidirectional formatting, and the zero-width joiner and non-joiner for controlling ligature use. However these are given the general category rather than.