Step 1: Determine the UTF-8 encoding bit layout
The character has the Unicode code point U+0018. In UTF-8, it is encoded using 1 byte because its codepoint is in the range of
0x0000to0x007f.
Therefore we know that the UTF-8 encoding will be done over 7 bits within the final 8 bits and that it will have the format:0xxxxxxx
Where thexare the payload bits.UTF-8 Encoding bit layout by codepoint range Codepoint Range Bytes Bit pattern Payload length U+0000 - U+007F 1 0xxxxxxx 7 bits U+0080 - U+07FF 2 110xxxxx 10xxxxxx 11 bits U+0800 - U+FFFF 3 1110xxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 16 bits U+10000 - U+10FFFF 4 11110xxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 10xxxxxx 21 bits Step 2: Obtain the payload bits:
Convert the hexadecimal code point U+0018 to binary:
00011000. Those are the payload bits.Step 3: Fill in the bits to match the bit pattern:
Obtain the final bytes by arranging the paylod bits to match the bit layout:
00011000
<control>·U+0018
Character Information
Code Point
U+0018
HEX
0018
Unicode Plane
Basic Multilingual Plane
Category
Control
Character Representations
Click elements to copy| Encoding | Hex | Binary |
|---|---|---|
| UTF8 | 18 | 00011000 |
| UTF16 (big Endian) | 00 18 | 00000000 00011000 |
| UTF16 (little Endian) | 18 00 | 00011000 00000000 |
| UTF32 (big Endian) | 00 00 00 18 | 00000000 00000000 00000000 00011000 |
| UTF32 (little Endian) | 18 00 00 00 | 00011000 00000000 00000000 00000000 |
HTML Entity

URI Encoded
%18
Description
The Unicode character U+0018, also known as the "Start of Heading" (SOH), plays a crucial role in digital text communication, particularly in data transmission and file formats. It is commonly used to mark the beginning of a data block or a heading, which is especially useful in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) for delineating various sections and elements of complex structured documents like invoices, purchase orders, and shipping manifests. Although its usage has been largely overshadowed by newer standards, it remains essential in legacy systems built around older communication protocols such as X.25 and HDLC (High-Level Data Link Control). Despite being technically important, U+0018 does not have any cultural or linguistic significance and is purely a data-related symbol. It belongs to the Basic Latin Unicode block, a foundational component of the Unicode system encompassing 128 essential characters that span from U+0000 to U+007F. The Basic Latin Unicode block includes control codes and special symbols vital in programming languages, text documents, and various other applications.
How to type the symbol on Windows
Hold Alt and type 0024 on the numpad. Or use Character Map.