0x030A

0x030A is the hexadecimal code point used in Unicode for the combining diacritical mark known as the combining ring above. In Unicode it is officially named COMBINING RING ABOVE and is located in the Combining Diacritical Marks block (U+0300 to U+036F). As a non-spacing mark (category Mn), it does not represent a standalone character but rather attaches to a preceding base character to place a ring above it.

Encoding and representation: The code point corresponds to U+030A. In UTF-8 it is encoded as the two-byte sequence CC 8A. In UTF-16 it is represented as 0x030A. In text, it is typically drawn by rendering the ring diacritic atop or above the base character that it combines with. Rendering may vary by font and text engine; some fonts render the ring clearly, while others may render imperfectly or rely on precomposed equivalents if available.

Usage: The combining ring above is used to overlay a small ring diacritic on a base letter to convey certain phonetic or orthographic distinctions. It is commonly applied to Latin letters to form letters with ring diacritics in contexts where a precomposed character is not available or when dynamic composition is required. Languages and transliteration schemes may employ it in combination with base letters, though many standard orthographies prefer precomposed characters such as Å (U+00C5) when a ring above is part of the intended character shape.

See also: COMBINING RING ABOVE variants, U+00C5 LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE, U+00E5 LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH RING ABOVE, and U+0300 to U+036F for related combining diacritical marks.