The difference between a Tab and a newline is that tab is a universally recognized single ascii character while newline is in flux. Aside from this, a tab is a quasi-viewable character as the cursor will not go to the middle of the tab. Meaning if the tab takes up the space of 10 characters, you could not scroll to the place where the 5th character would be if it were in fact 10 spaces. You cannot highlight half of a tab in editors that allow text highlighting. I would therefore say that a tab is as visible as a space and can be easily differentiated. On the other hand, it is impossible to determine which binary charcters the editor stuck in at the end of a newline without looking at the binary/hex code.
I understand the complexity of dealing with multiple operating systems, but seriously, how many non-viewable characters can be embedded in text that actually make a difference between operating systems? Are there any besides newline? Sim "Tom Lane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > "Sim Zacks" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > A query written on any client should return the same result. The query being > > the visible appearance on the screen. > > This is presupposing the answer to the question at hand. I do not agree > with the above premise; it would seem to imply, for example, expanding > tabs to spaces so that "where foo = '<tab>'" yields the same result as > "where foo = ' '" for some appropriate number of spaces. > > regards, tom lane > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 8: explain analyze is your friend > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
