ANSI-X3-4

ANSI X3.4. The 1963 standard that defined ASCII — the foundation character set for X12 and every North-American EDI protocol.

Definition

ANSI X3.4 is the American standard that defined the ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) character set in 1963. It codifies 128 characters on 7 bits (95 printable and 33 control characters) and remains the foundation of every text-syntax EDI format, including X12, which relies entirely on ASCII for its separators and content.

Origin

ANSI X3.4 was published on 17 June 1963 by the American National Standards Institute, under Committee X3 (Computers and Information Processing). Updated in 1967 and 1986, it was adopted verbatim by ISO as ISO/IEC 646 (international variant). In 1996, X3 became INCITS, but the name ANSI X3.4 remains universally used.

Example in context

ISA*00*          *00*          *ZZ*EDIVERSE  *ZZ*PARTNER1  *...

Every character of an X12 message — including the element separator (*), the segment terminator (~) and end-of-line — must belong to the ANSI X3.4 repertoire. Non-ASCII characters are forbidden and lead to a syntax-parsing rejection.

Related terms

• X12 — the North-American EDI standard that builds on ANSI X3.4.
• ISO 9735 — the EDIFACT syntax standard, which also relies on ASCII (UNOA).
• ISA — the X12 envelope where ASCII separators are declared.