What Symbol Is This?

[jstevens]

Does anyone know what this symbol is? It is appearing at the end of a line in a log file.

el_sample.jpg

Regards,
John

[Leif]

It looks like ASCII code 172:

x.jpg

[Rudi]

In ASCII terms it is a logical negation symbol, or in simpler terms, a NOT sign. (see complete tables here...)
What it means in your document would be a guess?

[Leif]

...and a quick way to find the ASCII code of a character is to copy and paste it in cell A1 in Excel and in cell B1 enter:

Code: Select all

=CODE(A1)

[Leif]

In ASCII terms it is a logical negation symbol, or in simpler terms, a NOT sign. (see complete tables here...)
What it means in your document would be a guess?

So why do I see it as character 172?

[Rudi]

I Office 2013 it also lists it as character 172? Even if you use the reverse function in Excel and type out =CHAR(172), it give the NOT sign. However, if you hold down ALT and type 172 and release ALT, it gives the 1/4 sign, but with ALT+170, it gives the NOT sign. Maybe the symbol tables don't have ALL the ASCII symbols, or it is filtered based on some criteria. Who knows with Microsoft?!

[John Gray]

So why do I see it as character 172?

Many of these characters are (ASCII) code-page dependent, the current standard one for Windows being CP1252.

Surely you remember all the confusion and kerfuffle about DOS code pages, all that time ago?!

[John Gray]

Does anyone know what this symbol is? It is appearing at the end of a line in a log file.

el_sample.jpg

The NOT sign was first available on IBM keyboards for the 3270 terminal type, probably for use by the IBM programming language PL/1, and continued (with no obvious use) onto PC keyboards. In EBCDIC code page 285 for UK and Ireland (and on almost all others) the NOT sign is found at code point X'5F'.

[John Gray]

And if anyone is really, really interested in code pages, have a look at this humorous article by "Verity Stob" about code pages and Unicode.

[HansV]

In Microsoft Word, the ¬ character signifies an optional hyphen, but that does not extend to other applications.

[jonwallace]

Is it a continuation indicator, saying that the line is one long line that' wrapped? Maybe it depends on the program that you're using to view the log file.