Octal to Text Converter

What the octal to text converter does

This takes octal character codes and turns them back into readable text. Enter the codes, press the button, and copy out the characters they stand for.

It reverses writing text as octal. Octal codes are an older way of recording characters as numbers, so this is handy when you come across a set of them and want to know what they actually say.

How to use it

1. Enter your octal codes. Type the codes with a space between each one, for example 104 157 147.
2. Press Convert. The decoded characters appear in the output box.
3. Click the result to copy it. Tap the output to send it to your clipboard.

Press Reset to clear both boxes.

Each octal code is one character

Every character has a number behind it, fixed by the ASCII standard, and an octal code is simply that number written in base 8. So each code in your input stands for exactly one character. To decode a single code, you read the octal number to find its plain value, then look up the character that value belongs to. The code 104 is the octal way of writing 68, and 68 is the code for capital D.

How it reads your input

The tool splits your input at the spaces, so each space-separated number is treated as one character's code. That is why the spacing matters: it is what tells the tool where one code ends and the next starts, since octal codes vary in length. Give it the codes with single spaces between them and it will work through them in order, turning each one into its character.

A worked example with real codes

Take the codes 104 157 147.

• 104 in octal is 68, the code for capital D.
• 157 in octal is 111, the code for lowercase o.
• 147 in octal is 103, the code for lowercase g.

So those three codes give back D, o, and g, which is the word Dog. Each code was read on its own and matched to its character.

Reading octal escape codes back

Octal codes for characters are not just a textbook exercise. Some programming languages let you write a character inside a string as an octal escape, a backslash followed by the octal code, so \104 means capital D. If you ever need to work out what a run of such codes spells, this is the quick way to do it: drop in the octal numbers and read off the characters. It turns the old escape-code shorthand back into plain words.

Questions people ask

How do I convert octal back to text?

Enter the octal codes with spaces between them. Each code is read as a base-8 number, matched to its character through the ASCII table, and the characters are joined into text.

Why do the codes need spaces between them?

Because octal codes vary in length, the spaces are how the tool tells where one code ends and the next begins. Without them, it could not separate the codes.

What character is octal 104?

It is capital D. Octal 104 is the number 68, and 68 is the ASCII code for D.

What does an octal escape like \104 mean?

It is a way some languages write a character by its octal code in a string. \104 stands for the character with octal code 104, which is capital D.

References

1. Cerf, V. ASCII format for Network Interchange. RFC 20, Internet Engineering Task Force. https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc20