Re: [X-Unix] Why didn't Apple change the line break ?

[Brent Baisley]

Unix standard is just a line break, Mac standard is  just a carriage 
return. Changing it to Unix standard probably would have broken all 
text interfaces in all programs on the Mac since they wouldn't know 
where a line ended. Windows uses both line feeds and carriage returns. 
So if anything, Apple should have change to Windows standard as sort of 
a transition.
For web stuff, I find if I code to Unix standard I'm pretty safe. 
Probably because the web was originally based in Unix/Mainframe, so 
most Mac programs used for the web would recognize how a line ends.

Both the terms line feed and carriage return are kind of antiquated. 
Derived from the type writer. A line feed "scrolled" the paper to the 
next line, but left you in the same spot vertically. A "carriage 
return" returned the "carriage" back to the left. So if you think about 
it, Windows is the only platform that got it right using both a 
carriage return and line feed. When you press return you are brought to 
the start of the next line. Then there is the vertical tab, which 
FileMaker using as a return within the database. Go figure.


On Sep 20, 2004, at 2:44 PM, Alexandre Quessy wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I am a web developer, and I am having problems with charcter encoding, 
> and especially line breaks on Mac OS X. I wonder why Apple didn't 
> change the line break to the UNIX standard instead of keeping the same 
> old one. Anyone have an idea ?
>
> Character encodings are common and universal (ISO-8859-1 and UTF-8, 
> mainly for me) but line break aren't. Why not switch ?
>
> Alexandre Quessy
> Montréal, Québec, Canada
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-- 
Brent Baisley
Systems Architect
Landover Associates, Inc.
Search & Advisory Services for Advanced Technology Environments
p: 212.759.6400/800.759.0577