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From: julian@ecsvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.dcom,ecsnet.general
Subject: Re: looking for the perfect escape sequence
Message-ID: <2476@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 13-May-84 20:16:19 EDT
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.2476
Posted: Sun May 13 20:16:19 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 14-May-84 07:02:02 EDT
References: ecsvax.2342
Lines: 14

It would be unfortunate to use any ACSII character, since you run the risk
that some file has the sequence, or some device or program would use it.
Assuming it is a Unix system, using something like a DEL character may be
best of a bad choice, since this is the BREAK character or interrupt character,
and no program should use it.  Maybe an ESC-DEL would be the sequence to use,
if an ASCII is your only choice.

An electrical signal, like a BREAK signal of 100ms or more, would be preferred,
since this signal should not be produced by any file, whether binary or text.
BREAK could be an introducer character for the other functions.

Phil Julian
ecsvax!julian
.