Line (text file)

In computing, a line is a unit of organization for text files. A line consists of a sequence of zero or more characters, usually displayed within a single horizontal sequence.

The term comes directly from physical printing, where a line of text is a horizontal row of characters.

Depending on the file system or operating system being used the number of characters on a line may either be predetermined or fixed, or the length may vary from line to line. Fixed-length lines are sometimes called records. With variable-length lines, the end of each line is usually indicated by the presence of one or more special end-of-line characters. These include line feed, carriage return, or combinations thereof.^[1]

A blank line usually refers to a line containing zero characters (not counting any end-of-line characters); though it may also refer to any line that does not contain any visible characters (consisting only of whitespace).

Some tools that operate on text files (e.g., editors) provide a mechanism to reference lines by their line number.

See also

• Newline
• Line wrap and word wrap
• Line-oriented programming language, programming languages that interpret the end of line to be the end of an instruction or statement

References

1. Duckett, Chris (May 9, 2018). "Windows Notepad finally understands everyone else's end of line characters". ZDNet. Archived from the original on May 13, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2023.