Computer Character

Context:
- It can correspond to a single element of an alphabet of a Formal Language.
- It can correspond to the smallest unit of a Writing System.
- It can correspond to the smallest unit of a Text Processing System.
- It can used by a Character Encoding Decoding System to form specific linguistic, graphical, mathematical symbols.
Example(s):
- an ASCII Character (e.g. <, >, =, ...)
- a Character Literal,
- a Combining Character,
- a Control Character such as:
- a Diacritical Mark,
- a HTML Character,
- a Null Character,
- a Printable Character,
- a Punctuation Mark (e.g. ;, ., !,?, :, ..., ...),
- a Textual Character such as:
  - an Alphanumeric Character (e.g. a, b, a, ..., 0, 1, 2, ...),
  - Newline Character,
  - Whitespace Character,
- an Universal Character Set (UCS) Character,
- a Whitespace Character,
- a Word Character.
- …
Counter-Example(s):
- a Computer String,
- an Optical Character,
- a Word,
- a Sentence,
- a Pixel.
See: Wide Character, Alphabet, Syllabary, Written Language, Natural Language, Letter (Alphabet), Numerical Digit, American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII), Universal Coded Character Set, Character-Level Language Model, Character-Level Text Error Correction.

References

(Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_(computing) Retrieved:2020-2-10.
- In computer and machine-based telecommunications terminology, a character is a unit of information that roughly corresponds to a grapheme, grapheme-like unit, or symbol, such as in an alphabet or syllabary in the written form of a natural language.
  Examples of characters include letters, numerical digits, common punctuation marks (such as "." or "-"), and whitespace. The concept also includes control characters, which do not correspond to symbols in a particular natural language, but rather to other bits of information used to process text in one or more languages. Examples of control characters include carriage return or tab, as well as instructions to printers or other devices that display or otherwise process text.
  Characters are typically combined into strings.

(Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_(computing) Retrieved:2020-2-10.
- In computer and machine-based telecommunications terminology, a character is a unit of information that roughly corresponds to a grapheme, grapheme-like unit, or symbol, such as in an alphabet or syllabary in the written form of a natural language.
  Examples of characters include letters, numerical digits, common punctuation marks (such as "." or "-"), and whitespace. The concept also includes control characters, which do not correspond to symbols in a particular natural language, but rather to other bits of information used to process text in one or more languages. Examples of control characters include carriage return or tab, as well as instructions to printers or other devices that display or otherwise process text.
  Characters are typically combined into strings.

(Wikipedia, 2020) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_processing#Characters Retrieved:2020-2-10.
- Textual characters come in standardized character sets containing also control characters such a newline character, which arrange text. Other types of control characters arrange the transmission, define the character sets, and perform other housekeeping tasks.

(Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia, 2009) ⇒ https://www.refseek.com/data/cache/en/1/Character_(computer).html Cached version from Microsoft Encarta Encyclopedia discontinued website. Catched on October 31, 2009.
- QUOTE: Character (computer), a letter, number, punctuation mark, or other symbol or control code that is represented, to a computer, by one unit—1 byte—of information. A character is not necessarily visible, either on the screen or on paper; a space, for example, is as much a character as is the letter a or any of the digits 0 through 9. Because computers must manage not only so-called printable characters but the look (formatting) and transfer of electronically stored information, a character can also indicate a carriage return or a paragraph mark in a word-processed document, or it can be a signal to sound a beep, begin a new page, or mark the end of a file. See also ASCII; Computer.

(Christensson, 2006) ⇒ Per Christensson. (2006). "Character Definition". Retrieved 2020, Feb 9, from https://techterms.com
- QUOTE: A character is any letter, number, space, punctuation mark, or symbol that can be typed on a computer. The word “computer," for example, consists of eight characters. The phrase "Hi there." takes up nine characters. Each character requires one byte of space, so "computer" takes up 8 bytes. The list of characters that can be typed is defined by the ASCII and extended ASCII set. Some of the symbols available are pretty strange and may even make you say, "That's quite a character!"