[RESOLVED] Carriage Return and NewLine Debate

Myth_UK_

This is really just to 'end' a little argument between a colleague, and myself.

When writing a windows application in c++ or c#, I always use \r\n.

In php, I just use \n (even on a windows server), which seems to work fine.

My colleague states I shoud use \r\n on windows or \n on linux, unix systems, or use PHP_EOL.

I do know this, but I find \n works on everything apart from macs.

Q: Am I right in just using \n if it works?
Q: What are the overheads in using PHP_EOL instead? Would it be much slower.

P.S A second colleague states that \n is translated by the php compiler to the correct line terminator for the platform PHP was compiled on??? Is this true?

halojoy

For PHP the native is
only "\n"

Because PHP Linux Apache was original setup.
This is what PHP was written for and plattform Intended.

You should remember, and this was so when I first began with PHP like 10 years ago,
that it was a drag to find some Apache binary and difficult to get Apache Web Server to run on Windows.
There hardly even was an official Apache for Windows ......

Then Apache became so popular and they had to start make Apache for Windows.

I do absolutely like you do. And I have done it as long as I can remember:

When I write PHP I have line endings set to Unix Newline.

This means configuration of all my HTML/PHP Editors to have UNIX type line endings .
And this is how all my php pages are saved in my Windows XP drive.

So, keep doing the \n 🙂
This will give you less problems in PHP Code and Scripts.

bradgrafelman

halojoy wrote:
For PHP the native is
only "\n"

There is no "native" line break in PHP. There's the PHP_EOL, which gives you the operating system's expected line break, and that's about it. It can parse PHP scripts, read files, etc. etc. with \r, \n, or \r\n.

Myth(UK) wrote:
I do know this, but I find \n works on everything apart from macs.

Seems about right, since Macs use a carriage return (\r) for line endings, IIRC. Also, be careful about saying "everything" - try opening a file that uses Unix line endings (\n) on a Windows computer in Notepad.

As far as which line ending to use... I would say it depends on the situation. For example, in e-mail headers, you're supposed to use "\r\n" (unless you have a certain MTA that modifies line endings in headers and adds a carriage return in front of new line characters).

I tend to use "\n" in most cases just becase a) I'm usually only worried about *nix or Windows (sorry Mac lovers... well, almost sorry 😉), and b) "\n" is easier/faster to type than "\r\n" :p.

laserlight

Myth(UK) wrote:
When writing a windows application in c++ or c#, I always use \r\n.

Myth(UK) wrote:
P.S A second colleague states that \n is translated by the php compiler to the correct line terminator for the platform PHP was compiled on??? Is this true?

I do not know about C#, but for C++, file access in text mode causes such an automatic translation of '\n' to and from the respective platform's newline sequence.

You can read the PHP manual entry for [man]fopen/man for a discussion on this with respect to PHP.

bradgrafelman wrote:
Seems about right, since Macs use a carriage return (\r) for line endings, IIRC.

I am not a Mac user either, I think that this is not the case for Mac OS X, which is currently the dominant major version of Mac OS.

bradgrafelman

laserlight;10946658 wrote:
I am not a Mac user either, I think that this is not the case for Mac OS X, which is currently the dominant major version of Mac OS.

I just looked it up, and you're right - the "\r" line ending stopped after Mac OS 9. OS X and above switched to "\n" (which makes sense, since I think of Mac OS as a *nix OS with pretty colors, rounded edges, and overpriced hardware :p).

Myth_UK_

I do use \r\n for mail headers, and for outputing xml rss files... But using just \n, doesn't seem to make a difference.

Q: Would it be wise to just use PHP_EOL, or completely insane? It's just a defined variable, so it should have no overheads, right?

bradgrafelman

Myth(UK) wrote:
But using just \n, doesn't seem to make a difference.

shrug I just remember reading over the warnings in the manual for the [man]mail/man function. I don't know enough about the various MTA's in use today (or when that part of the manual was written) to say whether or not it's still a valid concern.

Myth(UK) wrote:
Would it be wise to just use PHP_EOL, or completely insane? It's just a defined variable, so it should have no overheads, right?

Again, depends on the situation. The PHP_EOL constant (not variable :p) is created based on the operating system that PHP is running on. Thus, it might be different on one web host than another.

Myth_UK_

bradgrafelman;10946664 wrote:
The PHP_EOL constant (not variable :p)...

Sorry, my mistake :glare:

But it seems I am vindicated, and I can go and give my colleague a slap! :rolleyes:

"\n rules!!!" 😃

bradgrafelman

Most Windows applications will recognize "\n" as a line ending, so yes, you could safely ignore your colleague's advice without worrying about excluding the Windows users from being able to use your scripts/etc.

Weedpacket

bradgrafelman wrote:
Most Windows applications will recognize "\n" as a line ending,

Indeed: after using quite a number of programs for viewing text files on Windows, Notepad is the only one out of the whole lot of them that doesn't. And who does anything serious in Notepad?

Pikachu2000

bradgrafelman;10946660 wrote:
I just looked it up, and you're right - the "\r" line ending stopped after Mac OS 9. OS X and above switched to "\n" (which makes sense, since I think of Mac OS as a *nix OS with pretty colors, rounded edges, and overpriced hardware :p).

I like, no, I love my Mac for desktop use. I have an old dual G5 PowerMac. I'm not nearly as thrilled with Mac now that they are using Intel processors. I think switching from a PPC RISC processor was a mistake for them. And now I can go buy cheap hardware and install OSX86, although I'm much more likely to run Gentoo, Fedora, or possible Mandriva.

Having said that, I would never even consider Mac for a server. When it comes to servers, Mac is way behind the curve.

Myth_UK_

After thinking about this...

I think the best advice I could give someone, if they didn’t know what their target platform was going to be, would be: Use PHP_EOL, but stick to the W3C, RFC specifications.

Mail headers, Mail message body, Textarea, for example, should use \r\n, according to the specifications.

Personally, I will stick with \n for everything else.