title: What do these signs mean? ^@
body: <p>I compiled c program with this code</p>
  
  <p><code>printf("|%5c|", '\0');</code> width 5 is just for example</p>
  
  <p>then used cat -e on a.out</p>
  
  <p><code>./a.out | cat -e</code></p>
  
  <p>and have this on the output</p>
  
  <p><code>|    ^@|$</code></p>
  
  <p>Am i right that it is '\0' represented as ^@? What is it and how does it work?</p>