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From: David Arnold <davida@pobox.com>
To: tuhs@tuhs.org
Subject: [TUHS] nl section delimiters
Date: Fri, 10 May 2024 16:15:52 +1000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1FECD6DE-3384-406F-8897-8D7C2DAAF636@pobox.com> (raw)

nl(1) uses the notable character sequences “\:\:\:”, “\:\:”, and “\:” to delimit header, body, and trailer sections within its input. 

I wondered if anyone was able to shed light on the reason those were adopted as the defaults?

I would have expected perhaps something compatible with *roff (like, .\” something). 

FreeBSD claims nl first appeared in System III (although it previously claimed SVR2), but I haven’t dug into the implementation any further. 

Thanks in advance,



d

             reply	other threads:[~2024-05-10  6:16 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2024-05-10  6:15 David Arnold [this message]
2024-05-10 10:08 ` [TUHS] " Rob Pike
2024-05-10 16:05   ` segaloco via TUHS
2024-05-10 16:50   ` John P. Linderman
2024-05-10 23:05     ` Steffen Nurpmeso
2024-05-11  9:07     ` Ralph Corderoy
2024-05-11  2:19 [TUHS] " Douglas McIlroy

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