From: Charles Lindsey (chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk)
Date: Mon Jan 01 2001 - 08:05:55 CST
In <yln1dbsyf2.fsf@windlord.stanford.edu> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
>Does the concept of "control character" have a formal definition here?
>ESC is sometimes used to introduce a character set change; does that make
>it a control character?
I think the term is well defined for those character sets that have them.
If a particular CCS provides for the use of ESC as a means to introduce
extra glyphs, then I would expect articles written according to that CCS
to follow its conventions.
Generally speaking, control characters are defined to "control" things
other than the transmitted text (such as movements of the carriage on an
ASR 33, or features of the transmission medium like EOR).
-- Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------ Email: chl@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl Voice/Fax: +44 161 436 6131 Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K. PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5