Character
A character may refer to any of the following:
1. Sometimes abbreviated as char, a character is a visual object representing text, numbers, or symbols.
For example, the letter "A" is a single character. With a computer, one character is one byte (8 bits). A computer can understand a character with ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange), which defines each character as a number translated to binary. For example, the letter "A" is "65" in ASCII and "01000001" in binary.
An invalid character error may be encountered when a character is used that the program or operating system does not support. For example, you may get this error when using a non-alphanumeric character or a character with an accent.
See the char definition for a full definition of the char programming term.
How to write a character on a computer
The most common method users use to create a character on a computer is with the keyboard. Smaller devices like smartphones without a physical keyboard use a virtual keyboard. It's also possible to input a character using voice recognition or OCR (Optical Character Recognition) when scanning text.
2. A character describes a sprite or 3-D model that takes on the role of a fictitious player in a computer game.
For example, while playing a game, you are considered a PC (player character) in that game. If you encounter a character not controlled by another human, it's known as an NPC (Non-Player Character). The picture shows a character in the World of Warcraft game.
Character cell, Character code, Character printer, Characters Per Inch, Computer abbreviations, Data type, Digit, Enquiry character, Lowercase, LSC, Metacharacter, MSC, Non-printing character, Null character, OOC, Pad character, Reserved character, Special characters, Tab character, Typography terms, Unicode, Uppercase, Word