Control Character Finder In Fields
Locate C0 and C1 control characters, including DEL, in cell strings and report cell index, UTF-16 offset, and code point; tabs and line breaks are included.
Description
Control characters may be invisible while still separating lines, changing display or disrupting text handling.
Control characters may be invisible while still separating lines, changing display or disrupting text handling. Locating them before removal lets a user distinguish intentional tabs/newlines from unwanted controls.1
Locate C0 and C1 control characters, including DEL, in cell strings and report cell index, UTF-16 offset, and code point; tabs and line breaks are included.
When to use Control Character Finder In Fields
Use this tool to locate C0 and C1 control characters, including DEL, in cell strings and report cell index, UTF-16 offset, and code point; tabs and line breaks are included.
Choose the original CSV text, decoded cell strings, byte values or counts requested by this tool. Use the stated delimiter, encoding, indexing and number/date convention.
How to use Control Character Finder In Fields and understand its results
- Choose the original CSV text, decoded cell strings, byte values or counts requested by this tool. Use the stated delimiter, encoding, indexing and number/date convention.
- Enter values using the field table and calculation rules, then run the tool.
- Read matches. The explanation below defines the units, signs, ordering and any flags or placeholder values.
- If the tool reports an input issue, correct the values and run it again. Apply the stated assumptions when interpreting a successfully returned result.
| Input field | Meaning | Value type; see rules below | Requirement |
|---|---|---|---|
| values | Values | list of string; maximum length: 10000; minimum entries: 0; maximum entries: 10000 | Required |
Supply decoded cell strings. The tool scans every UTF-16 position and reports each C0/C1 control, including DEL, with its zero-based cell index, zero-based UTF-16 offset and numeric code point. Tabs, CR and LF are included, so CRLF yields two matches. Match order follows cells and then positions within each cell.
match if code point ∈ U+0000…U+001F or U+007F…U+009F Units, indexing, boundary conditions and exceptional cases are defined in the calculation rules above.
| Output field | Meaning | Value type |
|---|---|---|
| matches | Matches | list of object |
{
"input": {
"values": [
"a\tb",
"x\u007fy"
]
},
"output": {
"matches": [
{
"cell": 0,
"offset": 1,
"codePoint": 9
},
{
"cell": 1,
"offset": 1,
"codePoint": 127
}
]
}
}Limitations and assumptions
Offsets count UTF-16 units rather than Unicode code points or encoded bytes; a preceding emoji can shift the offset by two. This does not find every invisible format character, parse CSV or change the strings.
Numeric inputs must be finite. Follow the calculation-specific rules for overflow, underflow and exceptional cases. Cell-string lists also have a combined text budget of 100,000 UTF-16 units per list. Missing required fields, extra fields, wrong value types and violations of the calculation rules are input errors.
Alternative or Complementary methods
Use Non-Printable Char Stripper Cells: Remove C0/C1 control characters and DEL from cell strings, optionally preserving tab, LF, and CR; other Unicode format characters are left intact. For a complementary task, use Field-With-Linebreaks Flagger: Find zero-based cell indices containing CR or LF characters, treating both individual line endings and CRLF as line-break presence.
References
-
Control Character Finder In Fields — tool.io
Similar or alternative tools
- Non-Printable Char Stripper Cells
Remove C0/C1 control characters and DEL from cell strings, optionally preserving tab, LF, and CR; other Unicode format characters are left intact.
- Field-With-Linebreaks Flagger
Find zero-based cell indices containing CR or LF characters, treating both individual line endings and CRLF as line-break presence.