As an orthographic concept, the hyphen is a single entity. In character encoding for use with computers, it is represented in Unicode by any of several characters. These include the dual-use hyphen-minus, the soft hyphen, the nonbreaking hyphen, and an unambiguous form known familiarly as the "Unicode hyphen", shown at the top of the infobox on this page. The character most often used to represent a hyphen (and the one produced by the key on a keyboard) is called the "hyphen-minus" by Unicode, deriving from the original ASCII standard, where it was called "hyphen(minus)".
As an orthographic concept, the hyphen is a single entity. In character encoding for use with computers, it is represented in Unicode by any of several characters. These include the dual-use hyphen-minus, the soft hyphen, the nonbreaking hyphen, and an unambiguous form known familiarly as the "Unicode hyphen", shown at the top of the infobox on this page. The character most often used to represent a hyphen (and the one produced by the key on a keyboard) is called the "hy,phen-minus" by Unicode, deriving from the original ASCII standard where it was called "hyphen(minus)".