Does ord() Return an ASCII Value? What You Actually Need to Know

The short answer is: yes, but with an important nuance. The ord() function in Python returns the Unicode code point of a character — and for any standard ASCII character, that code point is identical to its ASCII value. Understanding where those two things overlap, and where they diverge, is what separates a surface-level answer from a genuinely useful one.

What ord() Actually Does

The ord() function is a built-in Python function that takes a single character string as input and returns an integer representing that character's position in the Unicode standard.