Like C or Java, but unlike Python, Julia implements a type for a single character, the Char
type. A character literal is written as 'A'
, where typeof('A')
returns Char
. A Char
value is a Unicode code point, and it ranges from '\0'
to '\Uffffffff'
. Convert this to its code point with Int(): Int('A')
returns 65
, and Int('α')
returns 945
, so this takes two bytes.
The reverse also works: Char(65)
returns 'A'
, Char(945)
returns '\u3b1'
, which is the code point for α
(3b1
is hexadecimal for 945
).
Unicode characters can be entered by a \u
in single quotes, followed by four hexadecimal digits (ranging from 0-9 or A-F), or \U
followed by eight hexadecimal digits. The isvalid(Char, value)
function can test whether a number returns an existing Unicode character: isvalid(Char,0x3b1)
returns true
. The normal escape characters, such as \t
(tab), \n
(newline), \'
, and so on, also exist in Julia.