line separator : Java Glossary

line separator

aka line terminator, newline, carriage return. Different operating systems use different conventions to mark the ends of lines in text files. Note the spelling. Young Americans are tempted to spell it incorrectly as seperater.

Windows/DOS uses [CrLf] [\r\n] [0x0d 0x0a] to terminate each line.
The web, Unix, Linux and Mac OS (Operating System) uses [Lf] [\n] [0x0a] to terminate each line.
The older Mac OS 1-9 uses [Cr] [\r] [0x0d] to terminate each line.

If you use the readLine and println methods, Java automatically deals with the platform differences for you.

You

The last line in a file may or may not have a line separator.

binary formats
file separator
Files & directories
path separator
Platform specific file features
println format
readLine
text files

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