From: utzoo!decvax!cca!gwyn@Brl@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: CR vs. LF
Article-I.D.: sri-unix.3110
Posted: Sat Sep  4 17:44:18 1982
Received: Wed Sep  8 06:54:59 1982

From:     Doug Gwyn 
Date:     2 Sep 82 7:51:17-EDT (Thu)
A carriage return '\r' returns the carriage without advancing the line;
a line feed '\n' advances the line without returning the carriage.

I think UNIX is on the right track when it stores text lines with a
single terminating character rather than two (CR, LF).

There is no defined constant for '\n' in  for the same reason
that there is no defined constant for '\0': conventions have been
established and observed throughout the C language.

The best solution is to map internal '\n' to/from whatever external
representation you're stuck with, inside your system interface primitives.