0x09

0x09 is the hexadecimal code for the horizontal tab control character in ASCII and Unicode. It corresponds to the decimal value 9 and is classified as a C0 control code, meaning it does not have a printable glyph.

In text processing, the horizontal tab is used to move the cursor to the next tab stop rather than insert visible characters. The actual visual effect depends on the environment or editor, since tab stops can be fixed (for example, every eight columns) or configurable by the user or program.

In programming and data formats, 0x09 is commonly represented in string literals as an escape sequence such as \t in many languages. In Unicode, the tab character is U+0009, and in UTF-8 it is encoded as the single byte 0x09 when used within the ASCII range.

0x09 is widely employed as a delimiter in tab-delimited data formats, such as TSV, where it separates fields in a line of text. In editors and IDEs, tab handling may insert a real tab character or expand to spaces, depending on settings such as “soft tabs” or “indentation width.”

Because it is a non-printing control character, 0x09 can cause misalignment or parsing issues if read in contexts that do not treat it as a delimiter or whitespace. Proper handling typically involves respecting the environment’s tab width or using explicit delimiters in data formats.