ASCII table

VHDL has a built-in character type that can represent ASCII and Latin-1 characters. It’s in the standard (STD) library, which is loaded by default. You don’t need to import it.

Below, you can find the character type definition from the Language Reference Manual (LRM) and tables that list and explain all 256 values.

type CHARACTER is (
      NUL,    SOH,    STX,    ETX,    EOT,    ENQ,    ACK,    BEL,
      BS,     HT,     LF,     VT,     FF,     CR,     SO,     SI,
      DLE,    DC1,    DC2,    DC3,    DC4,    NAK,    SYN,    ETB,
      CAN,    EM,     SUB,    ESC,    FSP,    GSP,    RSP,    USP,
      ' ',    '!',    '"',    '#',    '$',    '%',    '&',    ''',
      '(',    ')',    '*',    '+',    ',',    '-',    '.',    '/',
      '0',    '1',    '2',    '3',    '4',    '5',    '6',    '7',
      '8',    '9',    ':',    ';',    '<',    '=',    '>',    '?',
      '@',    'A',    'B',    'C',    'D',    'E',    'F',    'G',
      'H',    'I',    'J',    'K',    'L',    'M',    'N',    'O',
      'P',    'Q',    'R',    'S',    'T',    'U',    'V',    'W',
      'X',    'Y',    'Z',    '[',    '\',    ']',    '^',    '_',
      '`',    'a',    'b',    'c',    'd',    'e',    'f',    'g',
      'h',    'i',    'j',    'k',    'l',    'm',    'n',    'o',
      'p',    'q',    'r',    's',    't',    'u',    'v',    'w',
      'x',    'y',    'z',    '{',    '|',    '}',    '~',    DEL,
      C128,   C129,   C130,   C131,   C132,   C133,   C134,   C135,
      C136,   C137,   C138,   C139,   C140,   C141,   C142,   C143,
      C144,   C145,   C146,   C147,   C148,   C149,   C150,   C151,
      C152,   C153,   C154,   C155,   C156,   C157,   C158,   C159,
      ' ',    '¡',    '¢',    '£',    '¤',    '¥',    '¦',    '§',
      '¨',    '©',    'ª',    '«',    '¬',    '-',    '®',    '¯',
      '°',    '±',    '²',    '³',    '´',    'µ',    '¶',    '·',
      '¸',    '¹',    'º',    '»',    '¼',    '½',    '¾',    '¿',
      'À',    'Á',    'Â',    'Ã',    'Ä',    'Å',    'Æ',    'Ç',
      'È',    'É',    'Ê',    'Ë',    'Ì',    'Í',    'Î',    'Ï',
      'Ð',    'Ñ',    'Ò',    'Ó',    'Ô',    'Õ',    'Ö',    '×',
      'Ø',    'Ù',    'Ú',    'Û',    'Ü',    'Ý',    'Þ',    'ß',
      'à',    'á',    'â',    'ã',    'ä',    'å',    'æ',    'ç',
      'è',    'é',    'ê',    'ë',    'ì',    'í',    'î',    'ï',
      'ð',    'ñ',    'ò',    'ó',    'ô',    'õ',    'ö',    '÷',
      'ø',    'ù',    'ú',    'û',    'ü',    'ý',    'þ',    'ÿ');

ASCII (0-127)

The first 128 values precisely match the ASCII table. Note that non-printable characters are defined as uppercase enumeration literals. You can still use them in VHDL code together with regular text. For example: report "Hello" & LF & "World!";

Decimal	Hex	Binary	VHDL character	Description
0	00	00000000	NUL	Null
1	01	00000001	SOH	Start of Heading
2	02	00000010	STX	Start of Text
3	03	00000011	ETX	End of Text
4	04	00000100	EOT	End of Transmission
5	05	00000101	ENQ	Enquiry
6	06	00000110	ACK	Acknowledge
7	07	00000111	BEL	Bell
8	08	00001000	BS	Backspace
9	09	00001001	HT	Horizontal Tab
10	0A	00001010	LF	Line Feed
11	0B	00001011	VT	Vertical Tab
12	0C	00001100	FF	Form Feed
13	0D	00001101	CR	Carriage Return
14	0E	00001110	SO	Shift Out
15	0F	00001111	SI	Shift In
16	10	00010000	DLE	Data Link Escape
17	11	00010001	DC1	Device Control 1
18	12	00010010	DC2	Device Control 2
19	13	00010011	DC3	Device Control 3
20	14	00010100	DC4	Device Control 4
21	15	00010101	NAK	Negative Acknowledge
22	16	00010110	SYN	Synchronous Idle
23	17	00010111	ETB	End of Block
24	18	00011000	CAN	Cancel
25	19	00011001	EM	End of Medium
26	1A	00011010	SUB	Substitute
27	1B	00011011	ESC	Escape
28	1C	00011100	FSP	File Separator
29	1D	00011101	GSP	Group Separator
30	1E	00011110	RSP	Record Separator
31	1F	00011111	USP	Unit Separator
32	20	00100000	`' '`	Space
33	21	00100001	`'!'`	Exclamation Mark
34	22	00100010	`'"'`	Quotation Mark
35	23	00100011	`'#'`	Number Sign
36	24	00100100	`'$'`	Dollar Sign
37	25	00100101	`'%'`	Percent Sign
38	26	00100110	`'&'`	Ampersand
39	27	00100111	`'''`	Apostrophe
40	28	00101000	`'('`	Left Parenthesis
41	29	00101001	`')'`	Right Parenthesis
42	2A	00101010	`'*'`	Asterisk
43	2B	00101011	`'+'`	Plus Sign
44	2C	00101100	`','`	Comma
45	2D	00101101	`'-'`	Hyphen/Minus
46	2E	00101110	`'.'`	Period
47	2F	00101111	`'/'`	Slash
48	30	00110000	`'0'`	Digit Zero
49	31	00110001	`'1'`	Digit One
50	32	00110010	`'2'`	Digit Two
51	33	00110011	`'3'`	Digit Three
52	34	00110100	`'4'`	Digit Four
53	35	00110101	`'5'`	Digit Five
54	36	00110110	`'6'`	Digit Six
55	37	00110111	`'7'`	Digit Seven
56	38	00111000	`'8'`	Digit Eight
57	39	00111001	`'9'`	Digit Nine
58	3A	00111010	`':'`	Colon
59	3B	00111011	`';'`	Semicolon
60	3C	00111100	`'<'`	Less-Than Sign
61	3D	00111101	`'='`	Equals Sign
62	3E	00111110	`'>'`	Greater-Than Sign
63	3F	00111111	`'?'`	Question Mark
64	40	01000000	`'@'`	At Sign
65	41	01000001	`'A'`	Capital Letter A
66	42	01000010	`'B'`	Capital Letter B
67	43	01000011	`'C'`	Capital Letter C
68	44	01000100	`'D'`	Capital Letter D
69	45	01000101	`'E'`	Capital Letter E
70	46	01000110	`'F'`	Capital Letter F
71	47	01000111	`'G'`	Capital Letter G
72	48	01001000	`'H'`	Capital Letter H
73	49	01001001	`'I'`	Capital Letter I
74	4A	01001010	`'J'`	Capital Letter J
75	4B	01001011	`'K'`	Capital Letter K
76	4C	01001100	`'L'`	Capital Letter L
77	4D	01001101	`'M'`	Capital Letter M
78	4E	01001110	`'N'`	Capital Letter N
79	4F	01001111	`'O'`	Capital Letter O
80	50	01010000	`'P'`	Capital Letter P
81	51	01010001	`'Q'`	Capital Letter Q
82	52	01010010	`'R'`	Capital Letter R
83	53	01010011	`'S'`	Capital Letter S
84	54	01010100	`'T'`	Capital Letter T
85	55	01010101	`'U'`	Capital Letter U
86	56	01010110	`'V'`	Capital Letter V
87	57	01010111	`'W'`	Capital Letter W
88	58	01011000	`'X'`	Capital Letter X
89	59	01011001	`'Y'`	Capital Letter Y
90	5A	01011010	`'Z'`	Capital Letter Z
91	5B	01011011	`'['`	Left Square Bracket
92	5C	01011100	`'\'`	Backslash
93	5D	01011101	`']'`	Right Square Bracket
94	5E	01011110	`'^'`	Circumflex Accent
95	5F	01011111	`'_'`	Underscore
96	60	01100000	'`'	Grave Accent/Backtick
97	61	01100001	`'a'`	Small Letter a
98	62	01100010	`'b'`	Small Letter b
99	63	01100011	`'c'`	Small Letter c
100	64	01100100	`'d'`	Small Letter d
101	65	01100101	`'e'`	Small Letter e
102	66	01100110	`'f'`	Small Letter f
103	67	01100111	`'g'`	Small Letter g
104	68	01101000	`'h'`	Small Letter h
105	69	01101001	`'i'`	Small Letter i
106	6A	01101010	`'j'`	Small Letter j
107	6B	01101011	`'k'`	Small Letter k
108	6C	01101100	`'l'`	Small Letter l
109	6D	01101101	`'m'`	Small Letter m
110	6E	01101110	`'n'`	Small Letter n
111	6F	01101111	`'o'`	Small Letter o
112	70	01110000	`'p'`	Small Letter p
113	71	01110001	`'q'`	Small Letter q
114	72	01110010	`'r'`	Small Letter r
115	73	01110011	`'s'`	Small Letter s
116	74	01110100	`'t'`	Small Letter t
117	75	01110101	`'u'`	Small Letter u
118	76	01110110	`'v'`	Small Letter v
119	77	01110111	`'w'`	Small Letter w
120	78	01111000	`'x'`	Small Letter x
121	79	01111001	`'y'`	Small Letter y
122	7A	01111010	`'z'`	Small Letter z
123	7B	01111011	`'{'`	Left Curly Brace
124	7C	01111100	`'\|'`	Vertical Bar/Pipe
125	7D	01111101	`'}'`	Right Curly Brace
126	7E	01111110	`'~'`	Tilde
127	7F	01111111	DEL	Delete

Extended ASCII (128-255)

The upper 128 values of VHDL’s character type correspond to the ISO/IEC 8859-1:1998 “Latin-1” code set.

Since the range 128–159 (decimal) is reserved for control codes in Latin-1, VHDL defines the placeholder enumeration literals C128–C159 to occupy those positions. These can still be used in VHDL code, even though they do not represent printable characters.

Decimal	Hex	Binary	VHDL character	Description
128	80	10000000	C128	VHDL-Specific
129	81	10000001	C129	VHDL-Specific
130	82	10000010	C130	VHDL-Specific
131	83	10000011	C131	VHDL-Specific
132	84	10000100	C132	VHDL-Specific
133	85	10000101	C133	VHDL-Specific
134	86	10000110	C134	VHDL-Specific
135	87	10000111	C135	VHDL-Specific
136	88	10001000	C136	VHDL-Specific
137	89	10001001	C137	VHDL-Specific
138	8A	10001010	C138	VHDL-Specific
139	8B	10001011	C139	VHDL-Specific
140	8C	10001100	C140	VHDL-Specific
141	8D	10001101	C141	VHDL-Specific
142	8E	10001110	C142	VHDL-Specific
143	8F	10001111	C143	VHDL-Specific
144	90	10010000	C144	VHDL-Specific
145	91	10010001	C145	VHDL-Specific
146	92	10010010	C146	VHDL-Specific
147	93	10010011	C147	VHDL-Specific
148	94	10010100	C148	VHDL-Specific
149	95	10010101	C149	VHDL-Specific
150	96	10010110	C150	VHDL-Specific
151	97	10010111	C151	VHDL-Specific
152	98	10011000	C152	VHDL-Specific
153	99	10011001	C153	VHDL-Specific
154	9A	10011010	C154	VHDL-Specific
155	9B	10011011	C155	VHDL-Specific
156	9C	10011100	C156	VHDL-Specific
157	9D	10011101	C157	VHDL-Specific
158	9E	10011110	C158	VHDL-Specific
159	9F	10011111	C159	VHDL-Specific
160	A0	10100000	`' '`	Non-breaking Space
161	A1	10100001	`'¡'`	Inverted Exclamation
162	A2	10100010	`'¢'`	Cent Sign
163	A3	10100011	`'£'`	Pound Sign
164	A4	10100100	`'¤'`	Currency Sign
165	A5	10100101	`'¥'`	Yen Sign
166	A6	10100110	`'¦'`	Broken Bar
167	A7	10100111	`'§'`	Section Sign
168	A8	10101000	`'¨'`	Diaeresis
169	A9	10101001	`'©'`	Copyright Sign
170	AA	10101010	`'ª'`	Feminine Ordinal
171	AB	10101011	`'«'`	Left Angle Quote
172	AC	10101100	`'¬'`	Not Sign
173	AD	10101101	`'-'`	Soft Hyphen
174	AE	10101110	`'®'`	Registered Sign
175	AF	10101111	`'¯'`	Macron
176	B0	10110000	`'°'`	Degree Sign
177	B1	10110001	`'±'`	Plus-Minus Sign
178	B2	10110010	`'²'`	Superscript Two
179	B3	10110011	`'³'`	Superscript Three
180	B4	10110100	`'´'`	Acute Accent
181	B5	10110101	`'µ'`	Micro Sign
182	B6	10110110	`'¶'`	Paragraph/Pilcrow Sign
183	B7	10110111	`'·'`	Middle Dot/Interpunct
184	B8	10111000	`'¸'`	Cedilla/Cedille
185	B9	10111001	`'¹'`	Superscript One
186	BA	10111010	`'º'`	Masculine Ordinal
187	BB	10111011	`'»'`	Right Angle Quote
188	BC	10111100	`'¼'`	One Quarter
189	BD	10111101	`'½'`	One Half
190	BE	10111110	`'¾'`	Three Quarters
191	BF	10111111	`'¿'`	Inverted Question Mark
192	C0	11000000	`'À'`	Capital A with Grave
193	C1	11000001	`'Á'`	Capital A with Acute
194	C2	11000010	`'Â'`	Capital A with Circumflex
195	C3	11000011	`'Ã'`	Capital A with Tilde
196	C4	11000100	`'Ä'`	Capital A with Diaeresis
197	C5	11000101	`'Å'`	Capital A with Ring
198	C6	11000110	`'Æ'`	Capital AE Ligature
199	C7	11000111	`'Ç'`	Capital C with Cedilla
200	C8	11001000	`'È'`	Capital E with Grave
201	C9	11001001	`'É'`	Capital E with Acute
202	CA	11001010	`'Ê'`	Capital E with Circumflex
203	CB	11001011	`'Ë'`	Capital E with Diaeresis
204	CC	11001100	`'Ì'`	Capital I with Grave
205	CD	11001101	`'Í'`	Capital I with Acute
206	CE	11001110	`'Î'`	Capital I with Circumflex
207	CF	11001111	`'Ï'`	Capital I with Diaeresis
208	D0	11010000	`'Ð'`	Capital Eth
209	D1	11010001	`'Ñ'`	Capital N with Tilde
210	D2	11010010	`'Ò'`	Capital O with Grave
211	D3	11010011	`'Ó'`	Capital O with Acute
212	D4	11010100	`'Ô'`	Capital O with Circumflex
213	D5	11010101	`'Õ'`	Capital O with Tilde
214	D6	11010110	`'Ö'`	Capital O with Diaeresis
215	D7	11010111	`'×'`	Multiplication Sign
216	D8	11011000	`'Ø'`	Capital O with Stroke
217	D9	11011001	`'Ù'`	Capital U with Grave
218	DA	11011010	`'Ú'`	Capital U with Acute
219	DB	11011011	`'Û'`	Capital U with Circumflex
220	DC	11011100	`'Ü'`	Capital U with Diaeresis
221	DD	11011101	`'Ý'`	Capital Y with Acute
222	DE	11011110	`'Þ'`	Capital Thorn
223	DF	11011111	`'ß'`	Small Sharp S (Eszett)
224	E0	11100000	`'à'`	Small a with Grave
225	E1	11100001	`'á'`	Small a with Acute
226	E2	11100010	`'â'`	Small a with Circumflex
227	E3	11100011	`'ã'`	Small a with Tilde
228	E4	11100100	`'ä'`	Small a with Diaeresis
229	E5	11100101	`'å'`	Small a with Ring
230	E6	11100110	`'æ'`	Small ae Ligature
231	E7	11100111	`'ç'`	Small c with Cedilla
232	E8	11101000	`'è'`	Small e with Grave
233	E9	11101001	`'é'`	Small e with Acute
234	EA	11101010	`'ê'`	Small e with Circumflex
235	EB	11101011	`'ë'`	Small e with Diaeresis
236	EC	11101100	`'ì'`	Small i with Grave
237	ED	11101101	`'í'`	Small i with Acute
238	EE	11101110	`'î'`	Small i with Circumflex
239	EF	11101111	`'ï'`	Small i with Diaeresis
240	F0	11110000	`'ð'`	Small Eth
241	F1	11110001	`'ñ'`	Small n with Tilde
242	F2	11110010	`'ò'`	Small o with Grave
243	F3	11110011	`'ó'`	Small o with Acute
244	F4	11110100	`'ô'`	Small o with Circumflex
245	F5	11110101	`'õ'`	Small o with Tilde
246	F6	11110110	`'ö'`	Small o with Diaeresis
247	F7	11110111	`'÷'`	Division Sign
248	F8	11111000	`'ø'`	Small o with Stroke
249	F9	11111001	`'ù'`	Small u with Grave
250	FA	11111010	`'ú'`	Small u with Acute
251	FB	11111011	`'û'`	Small u with Circumflex
252	FC	11111100	`'ü'`	Small u with Diaeresis
253	FD	11111101	`'ý'`	Small y with Acute
254	FE	11111110	`'þ'`	Small Thorn
255	FF	11111111	`'ÿ'`	Small y with Diaeresis