About BS

Integer ASCII code: 8
Binary code: 0000 1000
Octal code: 10
Hexadecimal code: 08
Group: control
Seq: ^H
C/C++ notation: \b or '\b'

Unicode symbol: , int code: 9224 (html &#9224) hex code: 2408 (html &#x2408)


Place the cursor one position to the left. This operation may erase the character that is placed leftwards of the cursor in output. Before discussing the output, let's remember some history. If you printed the character in early computer technology you couldn't erase it, so in output backspace was sometimes used in the function of generating accented characters in ASCII. Let's see: à could be produced using the three character sequence a BS ` (or, using the characters' hex values, 0x61 0x08 0x60). Nowadays this thing is widely criticized and not supported at all. In order to get rid of any ambiguity between the two possible uses of backspace, programmers decided to make a cancel character control code a part of the standard C1 control set.

Let's move on to the backspace. It is a keyboard key with the initial function of pushing the typewriter carriage one position backwards. Nowadays in modern computer systems backspace moves the display cursor one position backwards, deletes the character at that position, and shifts back the text after that position by one position.


In some typewriters there was a long system of typing. Let's see an example. How could a typist create a lowercase letter A with acute accent (á). First he or she had to type a lowercase letter A, press backspace, and then the acute accent key. This method is also called an overstrike. It is the basis for such spacing modifiers in computer character sets such as the ASCII caret (^, for the circumflex accent). Nowadays backspace composition is out of use with typical digital displays or typesetting systems that we use nowadays. We can say that it was partially replaced with the combining diacritical marks mechanism of Unicode, despite the fact that such characters don't perfectly work with lots of fonts. That's why the precomposed characters continue to be used. There is an opposite method for diacritical marks, which is used by some software (like TeX or Microsoft Windows). It is the following: namely positioning the accent first, and then the base letter on its position.


Everybody knows what does the term "backspace" means, as well as knows its primer function: to delete the character to the left of the cursor. However, the actual key may be called in many different ways, for example delete, Erase (for example in One Laptop Per Child), or with a left pointing arrow. A special symbol for "backspace" exists as U+232B ⌫ but its use as a keyboard label is not universal.

The backspace and the delete key are two different keys. In paper media for computers the delete key would knock out all the holes to cross out a character. In nowadays computers deletes text following it. Besides, the delete key has one more function: it frequently works as a generic command to remove an object (for example an image inside a document, or a file in a file manager), while backspace usually does not.

Common use

The backspace key is often matched to the delete character (0x7f in ASCII or Unicode) in modern systems. However, the backspace primer function, deleting the character before the cursor, remains.

The backspace key is usually used to go back a page or up one level in graphical web or file browsers.


input value base type output hash
BS char MD5 e2ba905bf306f46faca223d3cb20e2cf
BS char SHA1 8d883f1577ca8c334b7c6d75ccb71209d71ced13
8 dec MD5 c9f0f895fb98ab9159f51fd0297e236d
8 dec SHA1 fe5dbbcea5ce7e2988b8c69bcfdfde8904aabc1f
00001000 bin MD5 ae99c9b6996bd77564ab8a5f876d8e15
00001000 bin SHA1 a6da0084578dcf627b8b9790bea7cb673fe3cb27
0000 1000 bin MD5 7acc5458d7f795147f93b7274beab8ea
0000 1000 bin SHA1 52f3b0717419a2b0fc9060ef77d75f747e3c2a91
10 oct MD5 d3d9446802a44259755d38e6d163e820
10 oct SHA1 b1d5781111d84f7b3fe45a0852e59758cd7a87e5
08 hex MD5 fad6f4e614a212e80c67249a666d2b09
08 hex SHA1 1ea51bf32497d1b3708522b430b288a129f65307
0x08 hex MD5 5990ef66795d77d0f998b066ed0338c9
0x08 hex SHA1 432a3e71f41dcc25bcb79d077c4d41d6b17f5132
Back to ASCII table

 2018 © Dmytro Koshovyi. Ukraine, Mykolayiv.