General Category
General Category is a fundamental classification that assigns each character to a single, mutually exclusive group based on its primary semantic role, such as letter, number, punctuation, symbol, or separator. This categorization uses a two-level system: a broad major category (like Letter, Mark, Number, Punctuation, Symbol, Separator, or Other) and a finer subcategory (for example, Uppercase Letter, Decimal Digit, or Open Punctuation). The values are encoded as two-letter codes, such as "Lu" for an uppercase letter or "Nd" for a decimal digit. This property enables software to correctly sort text, identify word boundaries, detect numeric values, implement case conversion, and render text appropriately in contexts like line breaking or bi-directional display, regardless of the specific script or language.
- Abbr
- Lu
- Count
- 1906
Uppercase Letter is a character category for letters that have lowercase equivalents, like A, B, and C, used to mark capitalization.
- Abbr
- Ll
- Count
- 2366
Lowercase Letter is a character category for letters that have lowercase forms, like 'a', used in case sensitive text processing.
- Abbr
- Lt
- Count
- 31
Titlecase Letter is a character category for letters that appear as the first letter of a word in title case, like Dž.
- Abbr
- LC
- Count
- 0
Cased Letter is a category for alphabetic characters that have both uppercase and lowercase forms, enabling case mapping and case‑insensitive operations.
- Abbr
- Lm
- Count
- 473
Modifier Letter is a category for small, spacing symbols that alter the pronunciation of a preceding letter, like the glottal stop.
- Abbr
- Lo
- Count
- 153396
Other Letter is a classification for characters that are letters but lack a specific script, uppercase, lowercase, or titlecase form.
- Abbr
- L
- Count
- 0
Letter is a classification for characters representing alphabetic symbols, including letters from all scripts, but not digits or punctuation.
- Abbr
- Mn
- Count
- 2090
Nonspacing Mark is a character category for combining marks that occupy no width, attaching to a base character to alter its pronunciation or meaning.
- Abbr
- Mc
- Count
- 477
Spacing Mark is a character category for symbols that combine with a base letter and take up horizontal space, like some vowel signs.
- Abbr
- Me
- Count
- 13
Enclosing Mark is a character classification for symbols that visually surround or enclose another character, like a circle or box, without combining with it.
- Abbr
- M
- Count
- 0
Mark is a character category for combining signs that alter or refine a base letter's meaning or pronunciation.
- Abbr
- Nd
- Count
- 770
Decimal Number is a classification for digits with numeric value ten or less, including non decimal scripts, used for mathematical and sorting purposes.
- Abbr
- Nl
- Count
- 562
Letter Number is a category for numerals composed of letters, like Roman numerals, combining numeric value with alphabetic form.
- Abbr
- No
- Count
- 915
Other Number is a general category for numeric characters that are not digits, like fractions, superscripts, subscripts, and Roman numerals.
- Abbr
- N
- Count
- 0
Number is a broad classification for characters representing numerals, digits, and numeric values, including fractions and superscripts.
- Abbr
- Pc
- Count
- 10
Connector Punctuation is a category for characters like underscores that join words or symbols, often used in identifiers and filenames.
- Abbr
- Pd
- Count
- 27
Dash Punctuation is a character category for hyphens and dashes, used to connect or separate text elements like ranges, compounds, and breaks.
- Abbr
- Ps
- Count
- 80
Open Punctuation is a category for opening brackets, quotes, and similar marks that pair with closing counterparts.
- Abbr
- Pe
- Count
- 78
Close Punctuation is a character category for closing brackets, braces, and similar paired delimiters that terminate a quoted or parenthetical segment.
- Abbr
- Pi
- Count
- 12
Initial Punctuation is a character class for opening quotes, brackets, and similar marks that appear at the start of a phrase.
- Abbr
- Pf
- Count
- 10
Final Punctuation is a character category for closing or ending punctuation marks like closing quotes, brackets, and parentheses.
- Abbr
- Po
- Count
- 643
Other Punctuation is a category for symbols like commas, periods, and slashes that serve as punctuation but lack dedicated, specialized roles.
- Abbr
- P
- Count
- 0
Punctuation is a general category value for characters like commas, periods, and brackets, used to structure written text.
- Abbr
- Sm
- Count
- 1005
Math Symbol is a General Category value for characters representing mathematical operators, signs, and relations, like plus, equals, and integral.
- Abbr
- Sc
- Count
- 67
Currency Symbol is a character category for monetary signs, including dollar, euro, yen, and similar currency marks.
- Abbr
- Sk
- Count
- 127
Modifier Symbol is a character category for small written symbols, like accents or diacritics, that alter the meaning of adjacent characters.
- Abbr
- So
- Count
- 7561
Other Symbol is used for graphic characters that aren’t letters, numbers, marks, or punctuation, like currency signs, math symbols, or technical icons.
- Abbr
- S
- Count
- 0
Symbol is a character classification for punctuation-like marks, mathematical operators, currency signs, and other non-letter or number glyphs.
- Abbr
- Zs
- Count
- 17
Space Separator is a category for whitespace characters, like spaces and non-breaking spaces, that create horizontal or vertical gaps in text.
- Abbr
- Zl
- Count
- 1
Line Separator is a character class for invisible break markers, like the Unicode Zl category, that denote a line boundary.
- Abbr
- Zp
- Count
- 1
Paragraph Separator is a character category for control characters that explicitly mark the end of a paragraph, such as U+2029.
- Abbr
- Z
- Count
- 0
Separator is a category for characters that create space, like spaces, line breaks, and paragraph separators, without being visible glyphs.
- Abbr
- Cc
- Count
- 65
Control is a category for non-printing characters like tabs, newlines, and null, which control text flow or devices.
- Abbr
- Cf
- Count
- 170
Format is a character category for invisible, non-spacing control codes used to influence text layout, shaping, or rendering.
- Abbr
- Cs
- Count
- 0
Surrogate is a General Category value for code points reserved exclusively for use in UTF-16 encoding pairs, not for standalone characters.
- Abbr
- Co
- Count
- 137468
Private Use is a category for characters reserved for personal or application-defined meanings, ensuring no standardized interpretation is enforced.
- Abbr
- Cn
- Count
- 0
Unassigned is a category for code points not yet assigned to any character, reserved for future use or noncharacters.
- Abbr
- C
- Count
- 0
Other is a catch-all category for characters with no specific type, including unassigned code points, private use, surrogates, and control codes.