Use for questions about representation and manipulation of the end-of-line marker in text files, in particular when editing the same file on different operating systems where the representation may vary.
Text files are files in which data is represented in a line-based format as human-readable characters.
Apart from the general issue of character-encoding, a special challenge is that even within the same character encoding framework, the representation of the "end-of-line"-indicator is not standardized across all operating systems.
- DOS and Windows use a
CR+LFsequence to indicate the end of the current line - UNIX, Linux and related operating systems use a single
LFcharacter to indicate the end of the current line. - Other conventions are also known to exist, although they are not widespread any more.
This can lead to problems when editing a text file on an operating system using one convention after the same file was edited on a system using another convention.
This tag should be used on questions that deal with the problems arising from such situations, and the text and file processing tools used to overcome the problem or ensure compatibility of a file with the current OS's end-of-line style.
