How to use the Python ord() Function

John on June 22, 2021

The ord() function in Python converts characters to an integer representation. In the case of Unicode characters, this is a Unicode code point and for ASCII chars it is a 7-bit ASCII code.

ord() Syntax

ord() accepts one parameter; the character string.

ord(character)

Let's try converting some ASCII, Unicode and Emoji characters to demonstrate how it works:

print(ord('a'))

print(ord('b'))

print(ord('Æ'))

print(ord('😭'))

97
98
198
128557

To convert int representations back to a character, use the chr() function like this:

print(chr(97))
print(chr(98))
print(chr(198))
print(chr(128557))

a

b

Æ

😭