A substitute character (␚) is a control character that is used in the place of a character that is recognized to be invalid or in error or that cannot be represented on a given device.
In the ASCII and Unicode character sets, this character is encoded by the number 26 (hex 1A). Standard keyboards transmit this code when the Ctrl and Z keys are pressed simultaneously (Ctrl+Z).
Uses
In the MS-DOS operating system, this character is used to indicate the end of a file or the end of user input in an interactive command line window. This behavior was borrowed from the earlier CP/M operating system.
In Unix operating systems, this character is typically used to suspend the currently executing interactive process. The suspended process can then be resumed in foreground (interactive) mode, or be made to resume execution in background mode, or be terminated.
The Unicode Security Considerations report suggests this character as a safe replacement for unmappable characters during character set conversion.
References
See also
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