A carriage return, sometimes known as a cartridge return and often shortened to CR, <CR> or return, is a control character or mechanism used to reset a device's position to the beginning of a line of text. It is closely associated with the line feed and newline concepts, although it can be considered separately in its own right.
Originally, the term "carriage return" referred to a mechanism or lever on a typewriter. For machines where the type element was fixed and the paper held in a moving carriage, this lever was on the left attached to the moving carriage, and operated after typing a line of text to cause the carriage to return to the far right so the type element would be aligned to the left side of the paper. The lever would also usually feed the paper to advance to the next line.
Many electric typewriters such as IBM Electric or Underwood Electric made carriage return to be another key on the keyboard instead of a lever. The key was usually labeled "carriage return", "return", or "power return". With typewriters like the Selectric, where the type element moved when typing and the paper was held stationary, the key returned the type element to the far left and the term "carrier return" was sometimes used for this function.
To improve the keyboard for non-English-speakers, the symbol ↵ (U+21B5, HTML entity↵) was introduced to communicate the combined carriage return and line feed action.
Computersedit
In computing, the carriage return is one of the control characters in ASCII code, Unicode, EBCDIC, and many other codes. It commands a printer, or other output system such as the display of a system console, to move the position of the cursor to the first position on the same line. It was mostly used along with line feed (LF), a move to the next line, so that together they start a new line. Together, this sequence can be referred to as CRLF.[1]
The carriage return and line feed functions were split for practical reasons:
Carriage return by itself provided the ability to overprint the line with new text. This could be used to produce bold or accented characters, underscores, struck-out text, and some composite symbols.
Early mechanical printers were too slow to return the carriage in the time it took to process one character.[why?] Therefore, the time spent sending the line feed was not wasted (often several more characters had to be sent to ensure the carriage return had happened before sending a printing character). This is why the carriage return was always sent first.
It was then also possible to fit multiple line feed operations into the time taken for a single carriage return—for example for printing doublespaced text, headers/footers or title pages—to save print and transmission time without the need for additional circuitry or mechanical complexity to "filter out" spurious additional CR signals.
As early as 1901, Baudot code contained separate carriage return and line feed characters.
Many computer programs use the carriage return character, alone or with a line feed, to signal the end of a line of text, but other characters are also used for this function (see newline); others use it only for a paragraph break (a "hard return"). Some standards which introduce their own representations for line and paragraph control (for example HTML) and many programming languages treat carriage return and line feed as whitespace.
In both ASCII and Unicode, the carriage return is assigned code point 13 (or 0D in hexadecimal); it may also be seen as control+M or ^M. In character and string constants in the C programming language and in many other languages (including representations of regular expressions[2][3]) influenced by C, \r denotes this character.[4]
^"CRLF". MDN Web Docs. from the original on 2024-03-04. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
^"Regular expression syntax reference". JetBrains. from the original on 2023-10-03. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
^Jan Goyvaerts. "Regular Expressions Quick Start". regular-expressions.info. from the original on 2024-02-21. Retrieved 2024-03-04.
^Eric S. Roberts (1995). The Art and Science of C. Addison-Wesley. p. 311.
External linksedit
"What is Carriage Return and How Does it Benefit You?". Lenovo US.
January 01, 1970
carriage, return, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, january, . This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Carriage return news newspapers books scholar JSTOR January 2008 Learn how and when to remove this message A carriage return sometimes known as a cartridge return and often shortened to CR lt CR gt or return is a control character or mechanism used to reset a device s position to the beginning of a line of text It is closely associated with the line feed and newline concepts although it can be considered separately in its own right Contents 1 Typewriters 2 Computers 3 See also 4 References 5 External linksTypewriters edit nbsp Touchmaster Five with carriage return lever at left Originally the term carriage return referred to a mechanism or lever on a typewriter For machines where the type element was fixed and the paper held in a moving carriage this lever was on the left attached to the moving carriage and operated after typing a line of text to cause the carriage to return to the far right so the type element would be aligned to the left side of the paper The lever would also usually feed the paper to advance to the next line Many electric typewriters such as IBM Electric or Underwood Electric made carriage return to be another key on the keyboard instead of a lever The key was usually labeled carriage return return or power return With typewriters like the Selectric where the type element moved when typing and the paper was held stationary the key returned the type element to the far left and the term carrier return was sometimes used for this function To improve the keyboard for non English speakers the symbol U 21B5 HTML entity amp crarr was introduced to communicate the combined carriage return and line feed action Computers editIn computing the carriage return is one of the control characters in ASCII code Unicode EBCDIC and many other codes It commands a printer or other output system such as the display of a system console to move the position of the cursor to the first position on the same line It was mostly used along with line feed LF a move to the next line so that together they start a new line Together this sequence can be referred to as CRLF 1 The carriage return and line feed functions were split for practical reasons Carriage return by itself provided the ability to overprint the line with new text This could be used to produce bold or accented characters underscores struck out text and some composite symbols Early mechanical printers were too slow to return the carriage in the time it took to process one character why Therefore the time spent sending the line feed was not wasted often several more characters had to be sent to ensure the carriage return had happened before sending a printing character This is why the carriage return was always sent first It was then also possible to fit multiple line feed operations into the time taken for a single carriage return for example for printing doublespaced text headers footers or title pages to save print and transmission time without the need for additional circuitry or mechanical complexity to filter out spurious additional CR signals As early as 1901 Baudot code contained separate carriage return and line feed characters Many computer programs use the carriage return character alone or with a line feed to signal the end of a line of text but other characters are also used for this function see newline others use it only for a paragraph break a hard return Some standards which introduce their own representations for line and paragraph control for example HTML and many programming languages treat carriage return and line feed as whitespace In both ASCII and Unicode the carriage return is assigned code point 13 or 0D in hexadecimal it may also be seen as control M or M In character and string constants in the C programming language and in many other languages including representations of regular expressions 2 3 influenced by C r denotes this character 4 See also editNewline Enter key Soft return Hard return Unix2dos C0 and C1 control codesReferences edit CRLF MDN Web Docs Archived from the original on 2024 03 04 Retrieved 2024 03 04 Regular expression syntax reference JetBrains Archived from the original on 2023 10 03 Retrieved 2024 03 04 Jan Goyvaerts Regular Expressions Quick Start regular expressions info Archived from the original on 2024 02 21 Retrieved 2024 03 04 Eric S Roberts 1995 The Art and Science of C Addison Wesley p 311 External links edit What is Carriage Return and How Does it Benefit You Lenovo US Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Carriage return amp oldid 1216970151, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
