newline - Difference between and ?

Question

What’s the difference between (newline) and (carriage return)?

In particular, are there any practical differences between and ? Are there places where one should be used instead of the other?

Answer 1

In terms of ascii code, it's 3 -- since they're 10 and 13 respectively;-).

But seriously, there are many:

• in Unix and all Unix-like systems, is the code for end-of-line, means nothing special
• as a consequence, in C and most languages that somehow copy it (even remotely), is the standard escape sequence for end of line (translated to/from OS-specific sequences as needed)
• in old Mac systems (pre-OS X), was the code for end-of-line instead
• in Windows (and many old OSs), the code for end of line is 2 characters, , in this order
• as a (surprising;-) consequence (harking back to OSs much older than Windows), is the standard line-termination for text formats on the Internet
• for electromechanical teletype-like "terminals", commands the carriage to go back leftwards until it hits the leftmost stop (a slow operation), commands the roller to roll up one line (a much faster operation) -- that's the reason you always have before , so that the roller can move while the carriage is still going leftwards!-) Wikipedia has a more detailed explanation.
• for character-mode terminals (typically emulating even-older printing ones as above), in raw mode, and act similarly (except both in terms of the cursor, as there is no carriage or roller;-)

In practice, in the modern context of writing to a text file, you should always use (the underlying runtime will translate that if you're on a weird OS, e.g., Windows;-). The only reason to use is if you're writing to a character terminal (or more likely a "console window" emulating it) and want the next line you write to overwrite the last one you just wrote (sometimes used for goofy "ascii animation" effects of e.g. progress bars) -- this is getting pretty obsolete in a world of GUIs, though;-).