{{Unreferenced, date=May 2008 In computing, a line is a unit of organization for text files. A line consists of a sequence of zero or more characters, usually displayed within a single horizontal sequence. Depending on the

file system In computing, file system or filesystem (often abbreviated to fs) is a method and data structure that the operating system uses to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, data placed in a storage medium would be one larg ...

or operating system being used the number of characters on a line may either be predetermined or fixed, or the length may vary from line to line. Fixed-length lines are sometimes called records. With variable-length lines, the end of each line is usually indicated by the presence of one or more special end-of-line characters, such as a line feed or carriage return. A blank line usually refers to a line containing zero characters (not counting any end-of-line characters); though it may also refer to any line that does not contain any visible characters (consisting only of

whitespace White space or whitespace may refer to: Technology * Whitespace characters, characters in computing that represent horizontal or vertical space * White spaces (radio), allocated but locally unused radio frequencies * TV White Space Database, a mec ...

). Some tools that operate on text files (e.g., editors) provide a mechanism to reference lines by their line number.

See also