What does ‡a mean in a library catalog record?

It marks subfield a in a MARC record, the format library catalogs store their data in. Some cataloging tools print the subfield delimiter as ‡, while others show the same thing as $ or |. In the raw file the delimiter is the control byte 0x1F, so searching exported data for ‡ finds nothing.

What turns ç into ‡ in old French files?

A DOS-encoded file read as Windows-1252. Byte 135 means ç to DOS and ‡ to Windows, so français turns into fran‡ais and garçon into gar‡on. In Java, read the file with the DOS charset instead of the default: `Files.readString(Path.of("old.txt"), Charset.forName("IBM850"))`.

ASCII 135

Double daggerLowercase c with cedilla

ASCII 135 is ‡ on Windows and ç in old DOS.

‡ (Double Dagger) is byte 135 in Windows-1252, Unicode U+2021. In footnotes it's the third mark, after the asterisk and †. Chemists use it as a superscript for the transition state, as in ΔG‡ for the activation energy. The HTML entity is where people slip: entity names are case-sensitive, so &Dagger; with a capital D gives ‡, while lowercase &dagger; gives the single †. Its UTF-8 bytes are E2 80 A1, which show up as â€¡ when misread as Windows-1252.

ç (Small C with Cedilla) is byte 135 in code page 437, the original IBM PC character set, and maps to Unicode U+00E7. Windows-1252 has the double dagger ‡ at 135, so French or Portuguese DOS text read as Windows-1252 turns garçon into gar‡on. Code page 850 kept ç at 135 too. Capital Ç is 128 in DOS.

PunctuationLatin Letter

Technical Details

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 135 is ‡.
       Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */
    printf("\u2021\n");   /* UTF-8: E2 80 A1 */

    unsigned char b = 135;         /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */
    printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b);    /* 135 0x87 */
    return 0;
}

Code Example

</>

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {
    /* Byte 135 is ç only on a console using code page 437
       (chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the
       lone byte 0x87 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */
    putchar(135);

    /* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0x87 is -121.
       Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */
    char c = (char)135;
    unsigned char u = 135;
    printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u);   /* -121 135 */

    /* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */
    printf("\u00E7\n");          /* C3 A7 */
    return 0;
}

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 0135 on the numeric keypad, with Num Lock on. The leading zero picks the Windows code page. No numeric keypad? In Word, type 2021 and press Alt+X.
Mac: Press Option+Shift+7.
Linux: In GNOME, or any desktop running IBus, press Ctrl+Shift+U, type 2021, then Space. With a Compose key set up, press Compose, bar, equals.
Phone: Tap the character at the top of this page to copy it.

How to Type It

Windows: Hold Alt and type 135 on the numeric keypad, with no leading zero. Windows reads it as a DOS code and inserts ç.

ç is also ASCII 231 on Windows, which has the full guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

It marks subfield a in a MARC record, the format library catalogs store their data in. Some cataloging tools print the subfield delimiter as ‡, while others show the same thing as $ or |. In the raw file the delimiter is the control byte 0x1F, so searching exported data for ‡ finds nothing.
A DOS-encoded file read as Windows-1252. Byte 135 means ç to DOS and ‡ to Windows, so français turns into fran‡ais and garçon into gar‡on. In Java, read the file with the DOS charset instead of the default: `Files.readString(Path.of("old.txt"), Charset.forName("IBM850"))`.

Frequently Asked Questions

A DOS-encoded file read as Windows-1252. Byte 135 means ç to DOS and ‡ to Windows, so français turns into fran‡ais and garçon into gar‡on. In Java, read the file with the DOS charset instead of the default: `Files.readString(Path.of("old.txt"), Charset.forName("IBM850"))`.

ASCII 135

Double daggerLowercase c with cedilla

ASCII 135 is ‡ on Windows and ç in old DOS.

Punctuation

Latin Letter

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* On Windows (code page 1252) byte 135 is ‡.

Modern terminals expect UTF-8, so print the code point, not the byte. */

printf("\u2021\n"); /* UTF-8: E2 80 A1 */

unsigned char b = 135; /* the raw Windows-1252 byte */

printf("%d 0x%02X\n", b, b); /* 135 0x87 */

return 0;

}

#include <stdio.h>

int main(void) {

/* Byte 135 is ç only on a console using code page 437

(chcp 437 on Windows, or DOSBox). On a UTF-8 terminal the

lone byte 0x87 is invalid and prints as garbage, often �. */

putchar(135);

/* char is signed on x86, so a plain char holding 0x87 is -121.

Use unsigned char when you compare or index by byte value. */

char c = (char)135;

unsigned char u = 135;

printf("\n%d %d\n", c, u); /* -121 135 */

/* Portable: print the Unicode character as UTF-8 instead. */

printf("\u00E7\n"); /* C3 A7 */

return 0;

}