Communication Control Characters

Listed below in alphabetical order are the expanded text meanings for common ANSI communication control characters, and two-character system abbreviation for each one. Some abbreviations have forward slash characters between the two letters. This is to differentiate the abbreviations for a control character from a hex number. For example, the abbreviation for Form Feed is listed as F/F, to differentiate it from the hex number FF.

Communications Control Characters

Abbreviation

Control Character

Text

AK ACK Acknowledge
BL BEL Bell
BS BS Backspace
CN CAN Cancel
CR CR Carriage Return
D/1-4 DC1-4 Device Control 1-4
D/E DEL Delete
DL DLE Data Link Escape
EM EM End of Medium
EQ ENQ Enquiry
ET EOT End of Transmission
E/C ESC Escape
E/B ETB End of Transmission Block
EX ETX End of Text
F/F FF Form Feed
FS FS File Separator
GS GS Group Separator
HT HT Horizontal Tabulation
LF LF Line Feed
NK NAK Negative Acknowledge
NU NUL Null
RS RS Record Separator
SI SI Shift In
SO SO Shift Out
SH SOH Start of Heading
SX STX Start of Text
SB SUB Substitute
SY SYN Synchronous Idle
US US Unit Separator
VT VT Vertical Tabulation

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