> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.cipherinspector.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# ASCII Distribution Chart

> ASCII distribution shows how distributed the bytes are in terms of their 0-255 range.

## How it works

<Steps>
  <Step title="Decoding">
    The ASCII distribution chart will use decoded ciphertext content for charting the underlying bytes of data.
    UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32 will be converted to a byte array, and the bytes will be evaluated.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Ciphertext Settings">
    ASCII distribution takes into consideration the settings for each ciphertext. These settings currently include:

    * Ignore whitespace
    * Ignore punctuation
    * Ignore casing
    * Genericize text

    This works by decoding the ciphertext and using the number that the byte represents for each byte in the sequence.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Frequency Calculations">
    After all of the above steps are performed, the frequency calculations are executed and mapped to the distribution chart.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## ASCII Distribution Settings

### Display range

The following options are given to adjust the display range of the chart. This can help focus on the relevant parts of the chart:

* ASCII: range of 0-127. This is the standard ASCII table.
* Extended (Default): 0-255. This is the "extended" ASCII table (latin1).
* Input range: only displays data starting from the lowest charted byte and ending at the highest charted byte.

### Count vs. Percentage

The y-axis can be toggled to use either a count or a percentage measurement.

#### Count

The count option will chart the byte frequencies in terms of raw count, and how many times they appear in the ciphertext.

#### Percentage

The percentage option will chart the byte frequencies in terms of raw count divided by total byte count.

## Practical Application

ASCII distribution analysis can be leveraged to:

* Discover if a given stream of bytes has been shifted up or down along the ASCII table.
* Determine if two or more ciphertexts follow similar character distribution.

## Caveats

* Use of this tool with UTF-8, UTF-16, and UTF-32 will produce mixed results, as these
  encodings do not use single bytes to represent characters.