User:Vadmium/test

In computing

In the ASCII character encoding, the hyphen is encoded as character 45. This character is actually called the hyphen–minus, and it is also used as the minus sign and for dashes. In Unicode, the hyphen–minus is encoded as U+002D ( - ) so that Unicode remains compatible with ASCII. However, Unicode also encodes the hyphen and minus separately, as U+2010 ( ‐ ) and U+2212 ( − ) respectively, along with the em dash, U+2014 ( — ), en dash U+2013 ( – ) and other related characters. The hyphen-minus is a general-purpose character which attempts to fulfill several roles, and wherever accurate typography is needed, the correct hyphen, minus, or other symbol should be used instead. For example, compare 4+3−2=5 (minus) and 4+3-2=5 (hyphen–minus); in most fonts the hyphen-minus will have neither the correct width, thickness nor vertical position.

However, the Unicode hyphen is awkward to enter on most keyboards, so the hyphen–minus character remains very common. They are often used instead of dashes or minus signs in situations where the proper characters are unavailable (such as ASCII-only text) or difficult to enter, or when the writer is unaware of the distinction. Some writers use two hyphen–minuses (--) to represent a dash in ASCII text.