In the ASCII table, punctuation characters appear between the non-printing characters and before the numbers (!"#$%&')*+,-./
), between the numbers and the uppercase letters (:;<=>?@
), between the uppercase letters ([\]^_`
) and the lowercase letters, and after the lowercase letters ({|}~
).
On first glance, one would expect these to be grouped together; possibly either before all alphanumerical characters or behind them. But this is not the case; they apprear spread out in these different groups.
Why is this the case? Is there some (possible historical) reason why the characters are grouped this way?
Best Answer
According to Wikipedia ASCII article: