I'm reading Effective Java and it uses %n for the newline character everywhere. I have used \n rather successfully for newline in Java programs.
Which is the 'correct' one? What's wrong with \n ? Why did Java change this C convention?
What's up with Java's "%n" in printf?
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8 Answers
From a quick google:
There is also one specifier that doesn't correspond to an argument. It is "%n" which outputs a line break. A "\n" can also be used in some cases, but since "%n" always outputs the correct platform-specific line separator, it is portable across platforms whereas"\n" is not.
Please refer https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/java/data/numberformat.html
%n is portable across platforms
\n is not.
See the formatting string syntax in the reference documentation:
'n' line separator The result is the platform-specific line separator
While \n is the correct newline character for Unix-based systems, other systems may use different characters to represent the end of a line. In particular, Windows system use \r\n, and early MacOS systems used \r.
By using %n in your format string, you tell Java to use the value returned by System.getProperty("line.separator"), which is the line separator for the current system.
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