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Is there a way to type the null character in the terminal?
I would like to do something like:
this is a sentence (null) test123
297
You can do this with the Unicode Hex Input method (enable it in System Preferences -> Language & Text pane -> Input Sources tab, then select it from the menu item) by holding Option and typing "0000".
Typically, a null character is represented by a "space" or empty data set in applications such as a word processing database and is used for filling empty spaces and padding. In programming languages/context, a null character is represented by the escape sequence \0, and it marks the end of a character string.
The ASCII null is represented as 0x00, and zero is represented as 0x30. The ASCII NUL character is used to denote the end of the string in C or C++. When programmer used '0' (character 0) it is treated as 0x30. This is a hexadecimal number.
In databases and spreadsheets, a null character can also be used as padding. An example of a null character is when a software developer declares a variable without specifying a value, or sets it equal to nothing.
In Linux, any special character can be literally inserted on the terminal by pressing Ctrl+v followed by the actual symbol. null is usually ^@ where ^ stands for Ctrl and @ for whatever combination on your keyboard layout that produces @.
So on my keyboard I do: Ctrl+v followed by Ctrl+Shift+@ and I get a ^@ symbol with a distinguished background color. This means it's a special character and not just ^ and @ typed in.
Edit: Several years later and a few input variations implemented by different terminals using keyboard layouts that require pressing Shift to access @.
186
$ echo -e "this is a sentence \0 test123"
this is a sentence test123
The null here ^^ IS NOT visible
$ echo -e "this is a sentence \0 test123" | cat --show-nonprinting
this is a sentence ^@ test123
But it IS here ^^
But maybe you did not want this for a script?
45
Apparently you can type this character with ^@ on some character sets. This wikipedia article on the null character may be helpful.
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