control character

control +‎ character

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.

• non-printable character
• non-printing character

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