up vote 9 down vote favorite
share [g+] share [fb]

Simple question: is there a character that looks either like Pac-Man, or like the ghost in Pac-Man?

With Google's recent Pac-Man logo, everyone should know what these look like, but in case you don't here are some sample images:

enter image description here enter image description here

If you answer "no" please provide a little more proof that you actually searched all unicode characters...

Example of what I'm looking for: If I were to ask, "is there a character that looks like a sun", I would expect an answer along the lines of "Yes, ☼ and according to charmap it is U+263C". That's what I'm looking for, but with Pac-Man or the ghost...

Usage: I would like to paste this symbol into a web form textbox in order for it to show on a webpage. This is a one-line textbox, so a complex ASCII art "image" isn't acceptable in this case.

link|improve this question
78% accept rate
3  
How about the letters "C" and "A"? – anon Jun 9 '10 at 17:16
8  
So you, if we answer "no", you expect us to prove it by checking every unicode character? In other words, you want us to do the work for you? – Chris Dunaway Jun 9 '10 at 17:18
3  
@Neil If you use A they'll get confused and say WTF is the Asteroids ship doing in PACMAN??? – vivin Jun 9 '10 at 17:22
3  
@Chris, the point of SO is to ask questions. If we all did our work for ourselves, why would this site exist? – zvolkov Jun 9 '10 at 17:25
5  
Ricket, make me a sandwich. I asked on StackOverflow. Where's my sandwich? – Warren P Jun 9 '10 at 17:26
show 4 more comments
feedback

migrated from stackoverflow.com Sep 29 '10 at 20:46

This question came from our site for professional and enthusiast programmers.

9 Answers

up vote 9 down vote accepted

It's not looking good -- presumably, anything resembling Pac-Man would be in the "Geometric Shapes" block, but the closest you'll get is a circle that's 1/4 filled:

◔
◕
◴ ◵ ◶ ◷

link|improve this answer
I like the first one you posed; I used it and it is close enough to Pac-Man; you can definitely see the resemblance! Thanks :) – Ricket Jun 9 '10 at 18:13
1  
Just add a quick CSS transform and you're in business. – Xavi Sep 29 '10 at 17:22
feedback
up vote 8 down vote

No. Unicode does not provide amusing characters just for the hell of it--all of the wacky characters in Unicode (like the snowman and the sun) are there because some legacy encoding included them.

No legacy character set ever had a Pac-Man character. Hence, Pac-Man is not in Unicode.

If you're trying to find out if there's some oddball character that kinda-sorta resembles Pac-Man, you'll have to look through all of the codepages yourself.

link|improve this answer
2  
What about the snowman? ☃ He's kind of an amusing character. – mipadi Jun 9 '10 at 17:16
1  
I mentioned the snowman as an example of an oddball character that's in a legacy character set. – JSBձոգչ Jun 9 '10 at 17:20
Now all we need is the monster character from Ski Free! – vivin Jun 9 '10 at 17:21
2  
@mipadi: The snowman is a weather symbol. – Joey Jun 9 '10 at 17:21
feedback
up vote 7 down vote

No.

If you answer "no" please provide a little more proof that you actually searched all unicode characters...

Did you search all the unicode characters?

link|improve this answer
5  
I guess they didn't want to put that much effort in it :) – Joey Jun 9 '10 at 17:23
feedback
up vote 3 down vote

ᗤ <- pacman, also a ghost ᗣ got here by google, someone else will be looking for it, don't remember the unicode for it but i copied the characters from a old file.

link|improve this answer
Good find. ᗣ is U+15E3, ᗤ U+15E4, and ᗧ U+15E7. They're labeled as CANADIAN SYLLABICS CARRIER TTO, TTE, and TTA, respectively. – eswald Apr 18 at 16:55
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

The list of characters slated for Unicode 6.0 includes U+1F47B GHOST.

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

I know it's not quite what you asked, but Pacman makes an appearance in the discotastic DF Strand Midnight typeface.

DF Strand

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 1 down vote

ଓ

I think this looks like Pac-Man!

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote 0 down vote

( *< • • •

^ closest I can get to making Pacman with text

link|improve this answer
feedback
up vote -1 down vote

pacman = ¾ ○ = ⌓ + ⌔

:)

link|improve this answer
feedback

Your Answer

 
or
required, but never shown
discard

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.