About /r and /n...

So I know that /n is a newline, and /r is a carriage return. But what exactly are they used for, and who uses them?
If you have a newline what is the point of a Carriage Return?
And where and when should you use both /r/n, and when can you use just /n ?
Do all OSs use them in text files and the like? or is it much more specific than that?

--edit--
oh and if anyone has just a reference about them, plz point me that way, because I can't find much about them in my C++ reference book ("The Complete Reference C++, Third Edition" by Herb Shildt)

A carriage return moves the cursor back to the first column. A new line moves the cursor down a line. With most console programs, \r is not needed since the cursor defaults to the home column whenever there is a new line. With my socket class, I had to be sure to include a carriage return every time I had a new line or else the cursor would be one line under where it was before instead of in home column.

Oh! I see.. ok, that's very interesting. Can be pretty useful too.. I wonder why they bothered making consoles default to the home line..? anyway thanks for that, it helps :)

It's \r and \n, and I suggest you burn that Schildt book and get one by someone who isn't an idiot.

makes you wonder why he still keeps gatting book deals?!

axon

As I tried.
An `ENTER' key is treated as \r for WIN/DOS
but
An `ENTER' key is treated as \n for Linux (at least Redhat)

I see.. I had never heard before that Schildt didn't know what he was talking about.
lol.. /r.. I think I've been switching back and forth between linux and windows too much recently..
I keep using the wrong / or \ :p
Anyway, I never have used just the one book as my only reference, I've always supplemented it
with other things(from the web mostly) - but it's too bad I didn't find out about that before
I bought the book like a year ago.. oh well..
One question though.. if Schildt doesn't know what he's talking about how'd he end up on the ISO comittee?
Is it really that much influenced by how popular someone's books are?

eek - schildt even made it into the jargon file..? not exactly an entry to be proud of. I guess it just shows to go that I never read that far through the jargon file in a straight line tho heh.. man that is an interesting document.
Anyway,
> As far as I know, he's only an observer

Ah, okay.. I thought I had read somewhere he was actually on the committee

Yes indeed - I believe Hitler said something about "Say something loud enough and long enough, and it doesn't matter what it is, people will believe it."
Seriously, though, for the most part I use the book as a reference to the standard functions, which he has a list in the back - I haven't actually *read* very much of it except some stuff on file i/o and pointers - that book has actually been extremely useful to me on some things.. for instance pointers.. although any other book on the subject would most likely have been just as (or more) useful. At least he doesn't tell you to use void main in this one.. ^.^

Quote:

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Originally posted by Cobras2


Yes indeed - I believe Hitler said something about "Say something loud enough and long enough, and it doesn't matter what it is, people will believe it."

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By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed.
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf

Getting back to the point...

\r\n is used in a lot of DOS text files and console input/output. The carriage return was used back in the time where terminals didn't know enough to do that after each line. Because DOS is so old, it inherited this.