9 Mar
2003
9 Mar
'03
3:20 a.m.
A thing that has puzzled me almost for ever is why the newline
character in C is 012 and not 015. Does anybody have any insight?
Greg
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9 Mar
9 Mar
3:57 a.m.
A thing that has puzzled me almost for ever is why the
newline
character in C is 012 and not 015. Does anybody have any insight?
Well, my take on this is that C was developed with UNIX,
of course, and UNIX early on decided to use a single
character rather than a two-char (CRLF) sequence for
end-of-lines. So, since the CR was already in use for
the leading char in the two-char sequence, it made it a lot
easier to use the LF character for the single newline, so
programs wouldn't always have to be checking a second
character...
Regards,
Greg
6:19 a.m.
In message: <040b01c2e5f0$03000580$6401a8c0@gregnewport>
"Greg Haerr" <greg(a)censoft.com> writes:
: > A thing that has puzzled me almost for ever is why the newline
: > character in C is 012 and not 015. Does anybody have any insight?
:
: Well, my take on this is that C was developed with UNIX,
: of course, and UNIX early on decided to use a single
: character rather than a two-char (CRLF) sequence for
: end-of-lines. So, since the CR was already in use for
: the leading char in the two-char sequence, it made it a lot
: easier to use the LF character for the single newline, so
: programs wouldn't always have to be checking a second
: character...
Also, it is not possible to do overstriking w/o <BS> if you can't use
<CR> for the task.
Warner
7722
days inactive
7722
days old
2 comments
3 participants
participants (3)
-
Greg 'groggy' Lehey -
Greg Haerr -
M. Warner Losh