Step 1: Determine the UTF-8 encoding bit layout
The character # has the Unicode code point U+0023. 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+0023 to binary:
00100011. 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:
00100011
NUMBER SIGN·U+0023
#
Character Information
Code Point
U+0023
HEX
0023
Unicode Plane
Basic Multilingual Plane
Category
Other Punctuation
Character Representations
Click elements to copy| Encoding | Hex | Binary |
|---|---|---|
| UTF8 | 23 | 00100011 |
| UTF16 (big Endian) | 00 23 | 00000000 00100011 |
| UTF16 (little Endian) | 23 00 | 00100011 00000000 |
| UTF32 (big Endian) | 00 00 00 23 | 00000000 00000000 00000000 00100011 |
| UTF32 (little Endian) | 23 00 00 00 | 00100011 00000000 00000000 00000000 |
HTML Entity
#
URI Encoded
%23
Description
The Unicode character U+0023, also known as the NUMBER SIGN (#) or HASHTAG, plays a significant role in modern digital communication. In informal contexts, particularly social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram, this character is predominantly used to identify topics or themes, often preceding words or phrases to create thematic tags or categories for content. This practice aids users and algorithms alike in discovering relevant posts. The roots of the hashtag can be traced back to the 19th century when it was employed as an accounting symbol to denote a 'number sign' or 'pound'. Over time, its usage has evolved significantly from bookkeeping to become a versatile tool for organizing and categorizing digital content in various cultural, linguistic, and technical contexts. This character belongs to the Basic Latin Unicode block (U+0000 - U+007F), which encompasses 128 essential characters that serve diverse roles in programming languages, text documents, and applications. The Basic Latin Unicode block is foundational for many other Unicode blocks, containing common characters critical to communication across multiple platforms and devices. Despite its historical roots in the ASCII character set, this block has adapted to meet modern needs and remains integral to digital communication.
How to type the # symbol on Windows
Hold Alt and type 0035 on the numpad. Or use Character Map.