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to my understanding, in ASCII NUL is not a name, it's an abreviation. Is this correct?

  1. In wikipedia it says that the ASCII NULL character is called NUL.

  2. In comment 2962254, Matteo Italia states that the NULL character is not called NULL.

  3. here, the table in "Character groups", the name is "NULL", abreviated "NUL"

  4. here NUL is an abreviation, not a name
  5. in answer 30121329: «NUL is the name given to the first ASCII character.»
M24
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2 Answers2

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"NUL" is short for "NULL". Quoting ECMA-48, which lists all control characters as "8.3.xx acr - name":

8.3.88 NUL - NULL
Notation: (C0)
Representation: 00/00

NUL is used for media-fill or time-fill. NUL characters may be inserted into, or removed from, a data stream without affecting the information content of that stream, but such action may affect the information layout and/or the control of equipment.

Now, about your question:

In wikipedia it says that the ASCII NULL character is called NUL.

This is not what Wikipedia says. It says the ASCII null (lowercase!) character is called NUL. "Null character" is a term that applies to all character encodings, "NULL character" is not.

Wikipedia is correct, as there is nothing wrong with referring to this character by its official acronym.

In comment 2962254, Matteo Italia states that the NULL character is not called NULL.

He is wrong about that.

here, the table in "Character groups", the name is "NULL", abreviated "NUL"
here NUL is an abreviation, not a name

These are both correct.

in answer 30121329: «NUL is the name given to the first ASCII character.»

This is technically incorrect, but for all practical purposes correct. The acronyms are better known than the official names, and I don't see much of a problem in treating those acronyms as names.

Community
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  • FMI: I am used to read/write NULL uppercase in **code**. In this case it is defined by the context it relates to and may or may not be case insensitive. This does not apply to **terminologies**, though. – M24 Apr 03 '18 at 14:25
  • Actually the 7-bit character encoding known as ASCII (aka ISO-646, aka ANSI-X3.4) is specified by ECMA-6, which calls the two or three letter codes for characters _acronyms_ (§5.3: "_This ECMA Standard assigns a unique name to each character. In addition, it specifies an acronym for each control character and for the characters SPACE and DELETE, and a graphic symbol for each graphic character_"). (ECMA-48 defines the _use_ of the control characters, but does not _specify_ their names or acronyms or values or graphic symbols.) – Greg A. Woods Feb 23 '23 at 00:43
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Yes, nul, is an abbreviation of null.

Not a particularly shortened version as it’s only shorter by one character, but as ASCII characters are limited to 3, so there isn’t much choice really.

The uppercase standard of NUL is a convention of ASCII, for example, TAB.

Zoe Edwards
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