Python’s built-in ascii(object) function takes one object argument and returns the string representation of that object. The function calls the repr() built-in function and replaces non-ASCII characters with the character code \x. For example, calling ascii('München') results in the ascii string 'M\xfcnchen' by replacing character ü with character code \xfc.
| Argument | object | Iterable such as a list, tuple, or dictionary |
| Return Value | string representation with replaced Unicode symbols | Calls the repr(object) function and replaces all non-ASCII characters with their character codes using the backslash notation. |
Input : ascii("¥")
Output : '\xa5'
Input : ascii("ü")
Output : '\xfc'
Input : ascii("π")
Output : '\u03c0'
Input : ascii("µ")
Output : '\xb5'
Input : ascii("Ë")
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Example ascii()
The following code shows you how to use the ascii() function on different input arguments.
>>> ascii('München')
"'M\\xfcnchen'"
>>> repr('München')
"'München'"
>>> ascii('New York')
"'New York'"
>>> repr('New York')
"'New York'"
>>> repr([1, 2, 3])
'[1, 2, 3]'
>>> repr(42)
'42'You can observe multiple properties of the ascii() function:
- It returns a string representation of any object so it encloses the string in an extra pair of quotes.
- If the string contains non-ASCII characters, the result is the same as the
repr()function. - If the string contains only ASCII characters, the result replaces those characters with their character codes using the backslash notation.
- You can pass integers, lists, sets, dictionaries into the
ascii()function.
Summary
Python’s built-in ascii(object) function takes one object argument and returns the string representation of that object.
The function calls the repr() built-in function and replaces non-ASCII characters with the character code \x.
For example, calling ascii('München') results in the ascii string 'M\xfcnchen' by replacing character ü with character code \xfc.
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