U+001B "ESC" ESCAPE Unicode Character

U+001B "ESC" ESCAPE is a control character originally derived from the ASCII standard, designed to introduce an escape sequence that alters the interpretation of subsequent characters in a data stream. It is not a printable symbol but a signal used in terminal communications, printer protocols, and text formatting to invoke special commands, such as moving the cursor, changing text attributes like color or style, or switching between character sets. In modern computing, it remains essential in protocols like ANSI escape codes for terminal control and is often generated by pressing the Escape key on a keyboard, serving as a universal cancellation or mode-switching command in many software interfaces.

General Properties

Code Point	U+001B
Version Added	1.1
Unicode 1.0 Name	Escape
Block	Basic Latin
General Category	Control
Canonical Combining Class	Not Reordered
Bidirectional Class	Boundary Neutral
Alias	ESC (abbreviation) ESCAPE (control)

Encodings

HTML Decimal Encoding	
HTML Hex Encoding	
UTF-8 Encoding	0x1B
UTF-16 Encoding	0x001B
UTF-32 Encoding	0x0000001B
C/C++/Java Escape	\u001b

Unicode Properties

NFC Quick Check	Yes
NFD Quick Check	Yes
NFKC Quick Check	Yes
NFKD Quick Check	Yes
Numeric Type	None
Numeric Value	NaN
Line Break	Combining Mark
Script	Common
Script Extensions	Common
Indic Syllabic Category	Other
Vertical Orientation	Rotated
Grapheme Cluster Break	Control
Word Break	Other
Sentence Break	Other