In C#, what's the difference between \n and \r\n?

Question

In C#, what's the difference between \n and \r\n?

Ineducation

This is unrelated to C# as it would be applicable in almost all languages. – Sternpost

@Sternpost The answer may coincidentally apply to other languages. But other languages are free to do whatever they want. – Nikianikita

Dont use any of the two above. Simply use Environment.NewLine – Speleology

Answer 1

\n is Unix, \r is Mac, \r\n is Windows.

Sometimes it's giving trouble especially when running code cross platform. You can bypass this by using Environment.NewLine.

Please refer to What is the difference between \r, \n and \r\n ?! for more information. Happy reading

Godden

Because nowadays Windows is not as strict in this as it use to be, so it accepts \n as well. – Godden

@TobySmith I know this post is old, but you can try writing a file with "\n" as linebreak and open it with the standard Windows Editor. He will not do a linebreak unless you did "\r\n" – Habitue

In Windows 10, support for all types of line endings is added in Notepad! blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/commandline/2018/05/08/… – Godden

Answer 2

The Difference

There are a few characters which can indicate a new line. The usual ones are these two:

* '\n' or '0x0A' (10 in decimal) -> This character is called "Line Feed" (LF).
* '\r' or '0x0D' (13 in decimal) -> This one is called "Carriage return" (CR).

Different Operating Systems handle newlines in a different way. Here is a short list of the most common ones:

* DOS and Windows

They expect a newline to be the combination of two characters, namely '\r\n' (or 13 followed by 10).

* Unix (and hence Linux as well)

Unix uses a single '\n' to indicate a new line.

* Mac

Macs use a single '\r'.

Taken from Here

Speaker

AFAIK, Macs haven't used \r since OSX -- they use \n now. And \r\n happens to be used by just about every app-layer internet protocol in existence that ever works in terms of lines. – Moonmoonbeam

Answer 3

"\n" is just a line feed (Unicode U+000A). This is typically the Unix line separator.

"\r\n" is a carriage return (Unicode U+000D) followed by a line feed (Unicode U+000A). This is typically the Windows line separator.

Fagaly

Jon but if it's only line feed , so why the text in the pic looks like it also has carrige return i.sstatic.net/LKVCr.png ? if it was only a line feed so the bbb... should not be at most left of the second line... – Cheque

@RoyiNamir: It all depends on the display medium. So it looks like the Windows console shell treats \n as a complete line break now, but it may not in all versions - and if you view that same data as a file in notepad, you won't see a line break. – Fagaly

Answer 4

\n = LF (Line Feed) // Used as a new line character on Unix

\r = CR (Carriage Return) // Used as a new line character on Mac

\r\n = CR + LF // Used as a new line character on Windows

(char)13 = \r = CR

Environment.NewLine = any of the above code based on the operating system

// .NET provides the Environment class which provides many data based on operating systems, so if the application is built on Windows, and you use CR + LF ("\n\r" instead of Environment.NewLine) as the new line character in your strings, and then Microsoft creates a VM for running .NET applications in Unix, then there will be problem. So, you should always use Environment.NewLine when you want a new line character. Now you need not to care about the operating system.

Salamander

Answer 5

Basically comes down to Windows standard: \r\n and Unix based systems using: \n

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline

Biretta

Answer 6

It's about how the operating system recognizes line ends.

• Windows user \r\n
• Mac user \r
• Linux uses \n

Morale: if you are developing for Windows, stick to \r\n. Or even better, use C# string functions to deal with strings which already consider line endings (WriteLine, and such).

Suber

Answer 7

\n is the line break used by Unix(-like) systems, \r\n is used by windows. This has nothing to do with C#.

Recusant

Answer 8

They are just \r\n and \n are variants.

\r\n is used in windows

\n is used in mac and linux

Mitinger

Answer 9

• \r inserts U+000DCARRIAGE RETURN
• \n inserts U+000ALINE FEED

You can insert one, or the other, or both:

• \r\n inserts U+000DU+000A
• \n\r inserts U+000AU+000D

If you intention is to indicate "the end of the line", different platforms, and different technologies, expect you to insert different things:

• Windows: U+000DU+000A (i.e. \r\n)
• HTTP: U+000DU+000A (i.e. \r\n)
• HTML: U+000A (i.e. \n)
• Unix: U+000A (i.e. \n)
• Macintosh: U+000D (i.e. \r)
• zOS: U+0085 (i.e. \x85)

Nikianikita

Answer 10

Difference Between \n and \r\n in C#

In C#, newline characters can be represented as either \n (Line Feed) or \r\n (Carriage Return + Line Feed). The interpretation of these characters can vary depending on the operating system.

1. Windows:

   • Uses \r\n to denote the end of a line in text files and console output.
   • \n alone: While \n can be used and sometimes interpreted correctly, the standard newline sequence is \r\n.

2. Linux/Unix:

   • Uses \n to denote the end of a line.
   • \r\n: This combination might be interpreted as two separate characters, potentially causing issues in some applications.

3. Mac (Pre-OS X):

   • Used \r to denote the end of a line, though modern macOS follows Unix conventions and uses \n.

Clarifying the Behavior

• \n:

  • In both Windows and Linux, \n moves the cursor to the next line.
  • In C# applications, \n can be used in strings to insert a newline, but on Windows, it might not produce the expected result in some text files or console outputs where \r\n is expected.

• \r\n:

  • On Windows, \r\n moves the cursor to the beginning of the next line and is the standard newline sequence.
  • On Linux, using \r\n might lead to unexpected behavior, as it inserts both a Carriage Return and a Line Feed.

Examples

Here's how different newline sequences behave in C# strings:

string lineFeed = "hello\nworld";
string carriageReturnLineFeed = "hello\r\nworld";

Output on Windows:

• \n:

  hello
  world
  

• \r\n:

  hello
  world
  

Output on Linux:

• \n:

  hello
  world
  

• \r\n:

  hello
  world
  

In both cases, the visual output might look similar, but the underlying characters differ.

Summary

• Windows: Prefer \r\n for new lines, although \n might work in some contexts.
• Linux: Use \n for new lines.
• Mac (modern): Follows Unix conventions, using \n for new lines.

Understanding the correct newline sequence is important for ensuring consistent behavior across different platforms in C# applications.

Ticonderoga