When the software display mode is set to ASCII, it will attempt to map 8-bit values to their corresponding ASCII characters. This is particularly useful when decoding protocols that contain clear text such as asynchronous serial communications (GPS NMEA data), ASCII-based Modbus, Character LCD communications, or PS/2 Keyboard data.
When in this mode, common characters such as alpha-numeric characters and punctuation will just display in their ASCII equivalent. However, there are some special cases.
- Characters that have standard escape sequences (line feeds, carriage returns, and tabs) will display their escape sequence like this: \r, \n, \t.
- All values below 0x20 and values above 0x7E, with the exception of \t, \r, and \n, will be displayed as decimal instead of ASCII, surrounded by single quotes like this: '127'.
- The space character will be surrounded by single quotes like this: ' '.
- Commas will be displayed as the string COMMA. This is subject to change in future releases as the Analyzer SDK is updated to support different display modes for on-screen results and CSV export text.
Hints and Common Issues
- In many cases, ASCII is not the ideal display radix. You can change the display radix by following the instructions here:
{% content-ref url="changing-the-display-radix.md" %} changing-the-display-radix.md {% endcontent-ref %}
- One of the most helpful display bases when dealing with mixed ASCII text and raw data is "ASCII & Hex," which will display both values for each byte.
- Sometimes you might be in ASCII mode but not realize it. ASCII mode can look like decimal mode when dealing with values greater than 8 bits. If you see single quotes around your decimal numbers, you are actually still in ASCII mode. I recommend switching to decimal or hexadecimal to avoid issues displaying smaller numbers.