ASCII file definition

An ASCII file is stored in a standard format where each character is directly associated with a specific pattern of bits as determined by the ASCII table. This interpretation is direct in that the first group of 8 bits is matched to the ASCII table to determine what single character will be displayed, and then the next group of 8 bits is interpretted to determine its single character.

ASCII is an accronym for the American Standard for Coded Information Interchange. This standard of what sequence of bits will match to what character is used by almost all of the computers in use today.

The applications such as cat and more are used to display the contents of ASCII files. The editors such as Emacs and vi are used to modify the contents of ASCII files.