Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!armadillo.cis.ohio-state.edu!lum
From: lum@armadillo.cis.ohio-state.edu (Lum Johnson)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: <control> L
Keywords: How do you use it correctly?
Message-ID: <57028@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 7 Aug 89 21:56:08 GMT
References: <488@sppy00.UUCP>
Reply-To: Lum Johnson <lum@cis.ohio-state.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Ohio State University, IRCC/CIS Joint Computing Laboratory
Lines: 40

In article <488@sppy00.UUCP> www@sppy00.UUCP (Victor Shakapopolis) writes:
>
>I was wondering about <control> L.  .. I enter a "^L" in the first
>column of an article[, but] it doesn't seem to work when I see the
>article I just posted.  I enter the "carrot" sign over the 6 on my
>keyboard, followed by an L.  Is this correct?

A very simple mistake.  You are entering two characters, "^" and "L",
when you want to enter one character, "^L", which unfortunately has
the same print representation.  (You will often see control characters
denoted less ambiguously:  CTRL/L, Control-L, C-L, <CTL/L>, etc.)
Control-L should do what you want - it is also known as Form-Feed,
and most software responds to it as though it denotes a page break.

First, find the key on your keyboard marked CONTROL, CTRL, CNTL, CTL,
or something of that sort.  (The marking may be eccentric on machinery
from eccentric hardware manufacturers - I hear that it is marked ALT
on IBM PC keyboards, to confuse those of us who _know_ that ALTMODE is
(or was until 1968) 033 (octal), now known as ESCAPE.)  It should be
on the left hand side above the SHIFT key and it is used similarly.

A control character is typed by holding down CONTROL and pressing
another key simultaneously.  Note that some control characters are not
typed in the obvious way on some terminals:  for example, on VT100s,
"^@" (Control-Atsign) is typed as though it were "^ " (Control-Space);
"^_" (Control-Underbar) as "^?" (Control-Question);  and "^^"
(Control-Caret) as "^~" (Control-Tilde).  Refer to the documentation
for your terminal or terminal emulation software for the surprises
your manufacturer has decided to give you.

There are 32 (decimal) control characters corresponding to all upper
case letters and to the characters:  "@", "[", "\", "]", "^", and "_";
some people argue that DELETE (RUBOUT) is also a control character.

Lum
-=-
-- 
Lum Johnson      lum@cis.ohio-state.edu      lum@osu-20.ircc.ohio-state.edu
"You got it kid -- the large print giveth and the small print taketh away."
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