Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 22:29:22 -0400
From: "William M. Shubert" <wms@hevanet.com>
Subject: Re: linebreaks...

Adrian Mariano wrote:
> (quoting me)
> >
> >    The original statement was correct.  In C, \n is *ALWAYS* just a LF.  It
> > has to be.  Saying:
> >
> >   char c = '\n';
> >
> > wouldn't work if \n was two characters!
> 
> This is misleading, at best.
> 
> Under DOS with my C compiler when "file" has been opened in text mode
> then the code:
> 
>    fputc('\n',file)
> 
> writes two characters to the file: a carriage return and a line feed.
> (Note that if the compiler didn't do this, then code written for unix
> would all break because of missing \r characters.)

   Huh?  This is fputc, not '\n'.  In unix, printf("\n") will actually emit
*two* characters when it goes to a terminal!  The \n and the \r.  But the
\n is still one character, and I don't see how that could be called
misleading.

> The Macintosh uses *just* "\r" to separate lines.

   What a drag.  So I guess we need to treat \n *or* \r as newline.  But
\n\r has to be a single newline, which makes it complex.  Ugh.
-- 
				-Bill (wms@hevanet.com)
				 http://www.hevanet.com/wms/