Fill Character (Character Sets, Part 1: MARC-8 Environment)

The key to retaining the MARC structure, while simultaneously reducing required coding specificity, is the fill character. For MARC 21 records, the use of this fill character is limited to variable control fields such as field 008 (Fixed-Length Data Elements). It may not be used in the leader or in tags, indicators, or subfield codes.

 Presence of a fill character in a variable control field indicates that the creator of the record has not attempted to supply a value.

 In contrast, use of a code value for "unknown" in a variable control field indicates that the creator of the record has attempted to supply a value, but was unable to determine what the appropriate value should be.

The fill character may be used in undefined character positions and in character positions for which the MARC 21 format defines one or more values. Use of the fill character in variable control fields is usually regulated by the policy of the inputting agency.

For communication purposes, the fill character is represented by the code 7C(hex) in the expanded 8-bit ASCII character set. The fill character is represented graphically as the vertical bar ( | ).

To return, select:

Part 1: MARC-8 Environment (Character Sets)

Character Sets