control character

English

Etymology

control +‎ character

Noun

control character (plural control characters)

1. (computing) A character which does not have a direct visual appearance as a glyph, but rather causes some other action to occur, such as a transition to a new line.

   The tab, carriage return, and line feed are all control characters.

   • 2004, Michael Stutz, The Linux Cookbook: Tips and Techniques for Everyday Use, 2nd edition, No Starch Press, →ISBN, page 215:

     To display raw control characters in text, but try to keep the screen appearance, use less with the -R option. This displays raw control characters, but any disparities that may be caused by the control characters on the screen are controlled, whenever possible.

Synonyms

• non-printable character
• non-printing character

Hyponyms

• bell character
• carriage return
• delete character
• line feed
• null character
• tab

Translations

computing character

• Arabic: شَخْص (ar) (šaḵṣ)
• Czech: řídící znak m
• Esperanto: stirsigno, regsigno, signalo
• Finnish: kontrollimerkki
• German: Steuerzeichen n
• Greek: χαρακτήρας ελέγχου (el) m (charaktíras elénchou)
• Japanese: 制御文字 (seigyo moji)
• Kannada: please add this translation if you can
• Romanian: caracter de control n, tastă de control f
• Russian: управля́ющий си́мвол (ru) m (upravljájuščij símvol)
• Spanish: carácter de control m