ord() and chr() ¶The ordchr extension adds two functions, named
ord() and chr(), as follows:
@load "ordchr"This is how you load the extension.
number = ord(string) ¶Return the numeric value of the first character in string.
char = chr(number) ¶Return a string whose first character is that represented by number.
These functions are inspired by the Pascal language functions of the same name. Here is an example:
@load "ordchr"
...
printf("The numeric value of 'A' is %d\n", ord("A"))
printf("The string value of 65 is %s\n", chr(65))
As of release 5.4 of gawk, the extension can handle multibyte /
wide character sets. If given an invalid multibyte string, in a UTF-8
locale, ord() returns the Unicode “invalid character” value,
0xFFFD. Otherwise, it returns the numeric value of the first byte
in the string. In a single-byte locale, ord() always returns the
numeric value of the first byte in the string.