Meta-Characters, Special Characters

Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Will]

Hi,

how can I find the an overview on how to enter meta-characters
(e.g. esc, return, linefeed, tab, ...)
a) in a regular buffer
b) in the minibuffer when using standard search/replace-functions
c) in the minibuffer when using search/replace-functions using regular 
expressions
d) in the .emacs file when defining keybindings

As far as I can see in all those situations entering meta-characters is 
addressed in a different way which I find confusing, e.g.:
a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>
b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i
c) \e, \r, \n, \t
d) (define-key [(meta c) (control c) (tab c)] "This is confusing!")

Furthermore, they are displayed in a different way,e.g.
- actual, visible layout
- ^E, ^M, ^L, ^I
- Octals

I would be happy about pages summarizing such information.
Any references available?

Thanks in advance,

Will

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[weber]

On 29 maio, 09:58, Will <schimpan...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> how can I find the an overview on how to enter meta-characters
> (e.g. esc, return, linefeed, tab, ...)
> a) in a regular buffer
> b) in the minibuffer when using standard search/replace-functions
> c) in the minibuffer when using search/replace-functions using regular
> expressions
> d) in the .emacs file when defining keybindings
>
> As far as I can see in all those situations entering meta-characters is
> addressed in a different way which I find confusing, e.g.:
> a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>
> b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i
> c) \e, \r, \n, \t
> d) (define-key [(meta c) (control c) (tab c)] "This is confusing!")
>
> Furthermore, they are displayed in a different way,e.g.
> - actual, visible layout
> - ^E, ^M, ^L, ^I
> - Octals
>
> I would be happy about pages summarizing such information.
> Any references available?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Will

I myself have all styles mixed...
Maybe this link helps:
http://xahlee.org/emacs/keyboard_shortcuts.html
Cheers,
weber

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[xah]

Will (aka weber) wrote:
«
[about the various ways to input or represent keystrokes and or non-
printable characters in Emacs]

As far as I can see in all those situations entering meta-characters
is
addressed in a different way which I find confusing, e.g.:
a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>
b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i
c) \e, \r, \n, \t
d) (define-key [(meta c) (control c) (tab c)] "This is confusing!")
»

None of this complexity is istrinsic.

Will wrote:
«a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>»

The C-q (or, pressing the Control key down then type q) is the
keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-insert.  It is a
general a way to allow you to input any non-printable characters. This
facility usually don't exist in other text editors. In popular text
editor such as Microsoft Word or Mac's Application, you usally bring
up a window showing all the special characters, then press a button to
insert the char you want.

« b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i»

In this, the C-q is the keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-
insert, which will insert a literal character of whatever character
you can type on your keyboard. So, for example, C-q followed by the
tab key will insert a the non-printable character tab.

When speaking of non-printable characters, the context is a character
set standard. Implicitly, we are talking about ASCII, and this applies
to emacs. Now, in ASCII, there are about 30 non-printable characters.
Each of these is given a standard abbreviation, and several
representations for different purposes. For example, ASCII 13 is the
“Carriage return” character, with abbr code CR, and ^M as its control-
key-input representation. (M being the 13th of the English alphabet)

For the full detail, look at the table here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii

(Note: Emacs also have a general way to input non-printable characters
of the unicode standard. See
Emacs and Unicode Tips
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_n_unicode.html
)

« c) \e, \r, \n, \t »

This is a ad-hoc set of input and display representation for a few non-
printable characters. This set is started by the motherfucking unix
tech geeking morons, and by its free and speedy nature as cigarette
given to children, today has spread to many languages (Perl, Java, C+
+, C#, Python, JavaScript ...) and is a de facto standard. The damage
is to such a degree that the general concept of unprintable
characters, their representation, and their method of input, all
treated in one systematic, simple way, are not in the consciousness of
average industrial programers.

I do not know the history of these display representations. (hopefully
someone will) It is my guess, that part of the reason for these, is
that the unix text editor vi, doesn't have a general way to input non-
printable chars.

« d) (define-key [(meta c) (control c) (tab c)] "This is confusing!")
»

This is the only part of complexity in our context that we can blame
emacs's design. Emacs has several ways to represent keystrokes for
defining shortcuts. The varieties mostly came from historical reasons,
combined the the influence of unix mentality “Why Change when it ain't
broken”.

Note here, that keystroke combination and sequence, is not the same
and cannot be mapped to character's input/representation in a
character set such as ASCII. For example, the F1 key in vast majority
of keyboards, isn't a character. So, this means, when you have a
editor with a language such as emacs, that allows users to define
arbitrary key stroke sequences, you necessarily have to come up with a
system to represent keystrokes. So, this complexity is a intrinsic
complexity.

(Side note: A easy way to understand what's intrinsic vs extraneous
complexity is to think: “My god, why is math so complex? God must have
fucked up in its design.”. The gist is that, certain things, are
inherently complex by nature, while others, are extraneous complexity
that are artificially created by lousy design or evolution. As a
concrete example in computing, languages like Lisp, is in general very
well designed. Due to its simplity and almost no artificial
complexity, programers are immediately exposed to many of the
intrinsic complexity of computing. While languages like C and its
litters such as C++, Java, C#, Perl etc created by the unix
motherfuckers, are filled to the brim with artificial complexity due
to tremendous laziness, ignorance, and lies. )

For various ways to represent keyboard shortcuts, see
http://xahlee.org/emacs/keyboard_shortcuts.html

For the unix mentality “Why Change when it ain't broken”, see
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/aint_broken.html

We, as software creators, must not have unix's “why change when it
ain't broken” attitude. Emacs itself, although far more well thought
out than majority of software, nevertheless aquired many baggages in
its 30 or so years of old age. I would recommend that we start a
effort to eliminate some of these outdated baggages. Please see:

“The Modernization of Emacs”
http://xahlee.org/emacs/modernization.html

  Xah
  xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/


On May 29, 5:58 am, Will <schimpan...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> how can I find the an overview on how to enter meta-characters
> (e.g. esc, return, linefeed, tab, ...)
> a) in a regular buffer
> b) in the minibuffer when using standard search/replace-functions
> c) in the minibuffer when using search/replace-functions using regular
> expressions
> d) in the .emacs file when defining keybindings
>
> As far as I can see in all those situations entering meta-characters is
> addressed in a different way which I find confusing, e.g.:
> a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>
> b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i
> c) \e, \r, \n, \t
> d) (define-key [(meta c) (control c) (tab c)] "This is confusing!")
>
> Furthermore, they are displayed in a different way,e.g.
> - actual, visible layout
> - ^E, ^M, ^L, ^I
> - Octals
>
> I would be happy about pages summarizing such information.
> Any references available?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Will

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Joshua Cranmer]

xah@xahlee.org wrote:
> Will wrote:
> «a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>»
> 
> The C-q (or, pressing the Control key down then type q) is the
> keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-insert.  It is a
> general a way to allow you to input any non-printable characters. This
> facility usually don't exist in other text editors. In popular text
> editor such as Microsoft Word or Mac's Application, you usally bring
> up a window showing all the special characters, then press a button to
> insert the char you want.

I would not go so far as to call Microsoft Word and Mac's Application 
"popular text editor [sic]"; I believe the proper term is "WYSIWYG word 
processors." Try programming in Word and then see if you would still 
claim that it is a text editor.

> « b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i»
> 
> When speaking of non-printable characters, the context is a character
> set standard. Implicitly, we are talking about ASCII, and this applies

Not technically. Implicitly, on any *NIX machine newer than, say, 2000, 
it implicitly refers to Utf-8, and Windows on English (or other 
Latin-based configuration, presumably) it would be ISO-8859-1 or Cp1252.

> « c) \e, \r, \n, \t »
> 
> This is a ad-hoc set of input and display representation for a few non-
> printable characters. This set is started by the motherfucking unix

Watch your language here!
> tech geeking morons, and by its free and speedy nature as cigarette
> given to children, today has spread to many languages (Perl, Java, C+
> +, C#, Python, JavaScript ...) and is a de facto standard. The damage
> is to such a degree that the general concept of unprintable
> characters, their representation, and their method of input, all
> treated in one systematic, simple way, are not in the consciousness of
> average industrial programers.

Far from it. Excusing your depressing lack of hyphens and incorrect 
spelling of simple words, the slash-character is neither ad-hoc nor 
damage-inducing. Because there are several non-standard ways to input 
control codes (not non-printable; HT prints something as much as ' ' 
does), the people who wrote the original C specification (not "unix tech 
geeking [sic]") decided to include such control codes as standard 
character references. The use of '\' as a control character makes 
perfect sense, as it tends to be rarely used in everyday stuff, and it 
already is a control character (think macros). Many of the languages 
cited -- although, interestingly enough, not C -- take as their source 
the B/CPL syntax, a.k.a. C syntax, to provide a familiar backdrop to new 
programmers.

Finally, I would like to address your idiotic usage of newsgroups. You 
are cross-posting a message about EMACS syntax to two (2) emacs 
newsgroups, a LISP group (I can sort of understand that), and a Perl and 
Java newsgroup. Well, at least you're cross-posting.

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@epenguin.zzn.com> writes:

> xah@xahlee.org wrote:
>> Will wrote:
>> «a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>»
>>
>> The C-q (or, pressing the Control key down then type q) is the
>> keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-insert.  It is a
>> general a way to allow you to input any non-printable characters. This
>> facility usually don't exist in other text editors. In popular text
>> editor such as Microsoft Word or Mac's Application, you usally bring
>> up a window showing all the special characters, then press a button to
>> insert the char you want.
>
> I would not go so far as to call Microsoft Word and Mac's Application
> "popular text editor [sic]"; I believe the proper term is "WYSIWYG
> word processors." Try programming in Word and then see if you would
> still claim that it is a text editor.

:-)

>> « b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i»
>>
>> When speaking of non-printable characters, the context is a character
>> set standard. Implicitly, we are talking about ASCII, and this applies
>
> Not technically. Implicitly, on any *NIX machine newer than, say,
> 2000, it implicitly refers to Utf-8, and Windows on English (or other
> Latin-based configuration, presumably) it would be ISO-8859-1 or
> Cp1252.

I am happy to note that Windows too stores its iinformation in UTF-8
internally, no matter what the user's settings for a particular
program may be.

-- 
BOFH excuse #340:

Well fix that in the next (upgrade, update, patch release, service pack).

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Miles Bader]

Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@nict.go.jp> writes:
> I am happy to note that Windows too stores its iinformation in UTF-8
> internally, no matter what the user's settings for a particular
> program may be.

I thought windows used something a bit more annoying and ad-hoc, UCS-16
or something like that.

-miles
-- 
We live, as we dream -- alone....

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

> Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@nict.go.jp> writes:
>> I am happy to note that Windows too stores its iinformation in UTF-8
>> internally, no matter what the user's settings for a particular
>> program may be.
>
> I thought windows used something a bit more annoying and ad-hoc, UCS-16
> or something like that.

Oh, you may be right there, I should have qualified my statement: as
opposed to a Windows-specific charset I think Windows uses a universal
charset. I am not sure why UCS-16 is more ad-hoc than UTF-8, but I
would be more than happy if linux instead of UTF-8 moved to UTF-16 or
UTF-32, in view of the many charsets I need in my work. I am not
nearly educated enough on this topic to hold a coherent conversation
however, still reading.
-- 
Grrr!!  ...Pick a reason...

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[David Kastrup]

Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@yahoo.com> writes:

> Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:
>
>> Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@nict.go.jp> writes:
>>> I am happy to note that Windows too stores its iinformation in UTF-8
>>> internally, no matter what the user's settings for a particular
>>> program may be.
>>
>> I thought windows used something a bit more annoying and ad-hoc, UCS-16
>> or something like that.
>
> Oh, you may be right there, I should have qualified my statement: as
> opposed to a Windows-specific charset I think Windows uses a
> universal charset. I am not sure why UCS-16 is more ad-hoc than
> UTF-8, but I would be more than happy if linux instead of UTF-8
> moved to UTF-16 or UTF-32, in view of the many charsets I need in my
> work. I am not nearly educated enough on this topic to hold a
> coherent conversation however, still reading.  -- Grrr!!  ...Pick a
> reason...

As soon as you leave the UTF-16 base plane, you need to deal with
surrogate character pairs.  The issues are pretty much the same as
when dealing with UTF-8, and you get the additional complications of
wide characters, quite more conspicuous byte order marks, Endianness
portability problems and so on.

In short: this buys you positively nothing unless you restrict
yourself to the base 16-bit subset (which makes this infeasible for a
number of tasks).  And even then, the disadvantages are not really in
a good balance with the advantages.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> writes:

> Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:
>>
>>> Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@nict.go.jp> writes:
>>>> I am happy to note that Windows too stores its iinformation in UTF-8
>>>> internally, no matter what the user's settings for a particular
>>>> program may be.
>>>
>>> I thought windows used something a bit more annoying and ad-hoc, UCS-16
>>> or something like that.
>>
>> Oh, you may be right there, I should have qualified my statement: as
>> opposed to a Windows-specific charset I think Windows uses a
>> universal charset. I am not sure why UCS-16 is more ad-hoc than
>> UTF-8, but I would be more than happy if linux instead of UTF-8
>> moved to UTF-16 or UTF-32, in view of the many charsets I need in my
>> work. I am not nearly educated enough on this topic to hold a
>> coherent conversation however, still reading.  -- Grrr!!  ...Pick a
>> reason...
>
> As soon as you leave the UTF-16 base plane, you need to deal with
> surrogate character pairs.  The issues are pretty much the same as
> when dealing with UTF-8, and you get the additional complications of
> wide characters, quite more conspicuous byte order marks, Endianness
> portability problems and so on.
>
> In short: this buys you positively nothing unless you restrict
> yourself to the base 16-bit subset (which makes this infeasible for a
> number of tasks).  And even then, the disadvantages are not really in
> a good balance with the advantages.

Thanks for the explanation. In view of this, I assume at least some
experts are exploring the possibility of introducing 16-bit
bytes. Problems with legacy systems are probably unsurmountable at
present though...
-- 
Grrr!!  ...Pick a reason...

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>
> Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 12:18:00 +0900
> 
> Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@nict.go.jp> writes:
> > I am happy to note that Windows too stores its iinformation in UTF-8
> > internally, no matter what the user's settings for a particular
> > program may be.
> 
> I thought windows used something a bit more annoying and ad-hoc, UCS-16
> or something like that.

It's UTF-16, actually.  Gernot Hassenpflug was wrong saying that it's
UTF-8.

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Gernot Hassenpflug]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>
>> Date: Sat, 02 Jun 2007 12:18:00 +0900
>> 
>> Gernot Hassenpflug <gernot@nict.go.jp> writes:
>> > I am happy to note that Windows too stores its iinformation in UTF-8
>> > internally, no matter what the user's settings for a particular
>> > program may be.
>> 
>> I thought windows used something a bit more annoying and ad-hoc, UCS-16
>> or something like that.
>
> It's UTF-16, actually.  Gernot Hassenpflug was wrong saying that it's
> UTF-8.

Thanks for the correction, I thought it was UTF-16, changed my mind,
and didn't check. The usual reason for fuckups.
-- 
Grrr!!  ...Pick a reason...

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[xah]

The following is a modified and extended version of the previous
article.
The HTML formatted version is available at
http://xahlee.org/emacs/keystroke_rep.html

The Confusion of Emacs's Keystroke Representation

Xah Lee, 2007-05-29

Someone wrote:
«
[about the various ways to input or represent keystrokes and or
non-printable characters in Emacs]

As far as I can see in all those situations entering meta-characters
is
addressed in a different way which I find confusing, e.g.:
a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>
b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i
c) \e, \r, \n, \t
d) (define-key [(meta c) (control c) (tab c)] "This is confusing!")
»

None of this complexity is intrinsic, except your item d. Your first
item:

«C-q <key>»

The C-q (or, pressing the Control key down then type q) is the
keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-insert. After this
command is invoked, the next key press on your keyboard will force
emacs to insert a character represented by that key, and withheld that
key's normal function.

For example, if you are doing string replacement, and you want to
replace tabs by returns. When emacs prompts you to type a string to
replace, you can't just press the tab key, because the normal function
of a tab key in emacs will try to do a command completion. (and in
other Applications, it usually switches you to the next input field)
So, here you can do C-q first, then press the tab key. Similarly, you
can't type the return key and expect it to insert a return character,
because normally the return key will activate the OK button or “end of
input”.

This input mechanism usually don't exist in other text editors. In
popular text editors such as Microsoft Word or Mac's Application, you
usally bring up a window showing all the special characters, then
press a button to insert the char you want.

«C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i»

In this, the C-q is the keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-
insert, which will insert a literal character of whatever character
you can type on your keyboard. So, for example, C-q followed by the
tab key will insert the non-printable character “tab”.

The C-[, C-m, C-j etc key-press combinations (Holding down Control key
while pressing “[”, “m”, “j”), are methods to input non-printable
characters that may not have a corresponding key on the keyboard.

For example, suppose you want to do string replacement, by replacing
Carriage Return (ASCII 13) by Line Feed (ASCII 10). Depending what is
your operatin system and keyboard, usually your keyboard only has a
key that corresponds to just one of these characters. But now with the
special method to input non-printable characters, you can now type any
of the non-printable characters directly.

When speaking of non-printable characters, implied in the context is
some standard character set. Implicitly, we are talking about ASCII,
and this applies to emacs. Now, in ASCII, there are about 30 non-
printable characters. Each of these is given a standard abbreviation,
and several representations for different purposes. For example, ASCII
13 is the “Carriage return” character, with abbr code CR, and ^M as
its control-key-input representation. (M being the 13th of the English
alphabet), and Control-m is the conventional means to input the
character, and the conventional method to indicate a control key
combination is by using the caret “^” followed by the character.

For the full detail, look at the table in the wikipedia article:
ASCII↗.

In general, the practical issues involved for a non-printable
character, in the context of a programing language for text editing,
are: its display representation, its input method, and the display
representation for the character's input method.

(Note: Emacs also has a general way to input non-printable and or non-
typable characters of the unicode standard. See Emacs and Unicode
Tips )

«\e, \r, \n, \t »

This is a ad-hoc set of input and display representation for a few non-
printable characters. This set is started by the motherfucking unix
tech geeking morons, and by its free and speedy nature as cigarette
given to children, today has spread to many languages (Perl, Java, C+
+, C#, Python, JavaScript ...) and is a de facto standard. The damage
is to such a degree that the general concept of unprintable
characters, their representation, and their method of input, all
treated in one systematic, simple way, are not in the consciousness of
average industrial programers.

I do not know the history of these display representations. It is my
guess, that part of the reason for these, is that the unix text editor
vi, doesn't have a general way to input and or represent non-printable
chars. Other reasons are that these particular non-printable chars are
vastly far more frequently needed in text/string manipulation among
programing languages, and the blackslash representation are somewhat
more intuitive, and processing blackslahsed characters as a “string
escape” mechanism works better as a representation inside strings for
programing languages, than the representations of prefixing a caret
“^”.

«
(global-set-key (kbd "M-a") 'func-name)      ; meta a
(global-set-key (kbd "C-a") 'func-name)      ; control a
(global-set-key [f2]   'func-name)      ; F2 key
(global-set-key [kp-2] 'func-name)      ; the 2 key on the number
keypad
(global-set-key [M-f2] 'func-name)      ; meta f2
(global-set-key [(meta shift a)] 'func-name)  ; Meta shift a (capital
A)
(global-set-key [?\C-x ?a] 'func-name)  ; control x, followed by a
(global-set-key [?\C-x f2] 'func-name)  ; control x, followed by f2
[This is confusing!]
»

These are elisp code to define a keyboard shortcuts. This is the only
part of complexity in our context that we can blame emacs's design.

Emacs today has several rather confusing ways for keystroke
representation, out of mostly historical reasons. For example, the
need to keep compatibility between Emacs and Xemacs↗. Another example
of a reason, is that elisp the language uses integer to represent
printable characters. So, for example, the number 97 in lisp's
keystroke code also means the keystroke “a”. These mostly historical
reasons, are exacerbated by the influence of unix mentality “Why
Change when it ain't broken”.

Note here, that keystroke combination and sequence, is not the same
and cannot be mapped to character's input/representation in a
character set such as ASCII. For example, the F1 key in vast majority
of keyboards, isn't a character. The Alt modifier key, isn't a
character nor is it a function in one of ASCII's non-printable
character. The keys on the number keypad, need a different
representation than the ones on the main keyboard section.

So, this means, when you have a editor with a language such as emacs,
that allows users to define arbitrary key stroke combination and
sequences, you necessarily have to come up with a system to represent
keystrokes. So, this complexity is a intrinsic complexity.

(Side note: A easy way to understand what's intrinsic vs extraneous
complexity is to think: “My god, why is math so complex? God must have
fucked up in its design.”. The gist is that, certain things, are
inherently complex by nature, while others, are extraneous complexity
that are artificially created by lousy design or historical baggage.
As a concrete example in computing, languages like Lisp, is in general
very well designed. Due to its simplicity and almost no artificial
complexity, programers are immediately exposed to many of the
intrinsic complexity of computing. While languages like C and its
litters such as C++, Java, C#, Perl etc and in general software in
unix, created by the unix motherfuckers, are filled to the brim with
artificial complexity due to mostly laziness/hack, ignorance, and
lies.)

For various ways to represent keystrokes in emacs, see How to Define
Keyboard Shortcuts in Emacs.

For the unix mentality “Why Change when it ain't broken”, see Why
Change when it ain't broken.

We, as software creators, must not have unix's “why change when it
ain't broken” attitude. Emacs itself, although far more well thought
out than the majority of software, nevertheless acquired many baggage
in its 30 or so years of old age. I would recommend that we start a
effort to eliminate some of these outdated baggage. Please see: The
Modernization of Emacs.

  Xah
  xah@xahlee.org
∑ http://xahlee.org/

Re: Meta-Characters, Special Characters

[Ingo Menger]

On 30 Mai, 01:29, x...@xahlee.org wrote:
> Will (aka weber) wrote:
>
> «
> [about the various ways to input or represent keystrokes and or non-
> printable characters in Emacs]
>
> As far as I can see in all those situations entering meta-characters
> is
> addressed in a different way which I find confusing, e.g.:
> a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>
> b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i
> c) \e, \r, \n, \t
> d) (define-key [(meta c) (control c) (tab c)] "This is confusing!")
> »
>
> None of this complexity is istrinsic.
>
> Will wrote:
>
> «a) <key> _or_ C-q <key>»
>
> The C-q (or, pressing the Control key down then type q) is the
> keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-insert.  It is a
> general a way to allow you to input any non-printable characters. This
> facility usually don't exist in other text editors. In popular text
> editor such as Microsoft Word or Mac's Application, you usally bring
> up a window showing all the special characters, then press a button to
> insert the char you want.
>
> « b) C-q C-[, C-q C-m, C-q C-j, C-q C-i»
>
> In this, the C-q is the keyboard shortcut to invoke the command quoted-
> insert, which will insert a literal character of whatever character
> you can type on your keyboard. So, for example, C-q followed by the
> tab key will insert a the non-printable character tab.
>
> When speaking of non-printable characters, the context is a character
> set standard. Implicitly, we are talking about ASCII, and this applies
> to emacs. Now, in ASCII, there are about 30 non-printable characters.
> Each of these is given a standard abbreviation, and several
> representations for different purposes. For example, ASCII 13 is the
> "Carriage return" character, with abbr code CR, and ^M as its control-
> key-input representation. (M being the 13th of the English alphabet)
>
> For the full detail, look at the table here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascii
>
> (Note: Emacs also have a general way to input non-printable characters
> of the unicode standard. See
> Emacs and Unicode Tipshttp://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_n_unicode.html
> )
>
> « c) \e, \r, \n, \t »
>
> This is a ad-hoc set of input and display representation for a few non-
> printable characters. This set is started by the motherfucking unix
> tech geeking morons, and by its free and speedy nature as cigarette
> given to children, today has spread to many languages (Perl, Java, C+
> +, C#, Python, JavaScript ...) and is a de facto standard. The damage
> is to such a degree that the general concept of unprintable
> characters, their representation, and their method of input, all
> treated in one systematic, simple way, are not in the consciousness of
> average industrial programers.

At least not in yours, it seems. You do not understand, that \n is not
a way to enter the newline character, but is a way to name the newline
character without actually using it right mow.
The difference between using a character and mentioning (i.e. speaking
about) a character did not come to your mind yet, did it?

> I do not know the history of these display representations. (hopefully
> someone will) It is my guess, that part of the reason for these, is
> that the unix text editor vi, doesn't have a general way to input non-

Type Ctrl+V when vi is in input mode and then type the character you
want.
But note that, in most languages, the string literals
  "Xah Lee
           knows not much"
and
  "Xah Lee\n knows not much"
are very different. In fact, some languages will not even recognize
the first one as string literal.
This, again, has to do with the fact, that string literals are a way
to *mention* charachters that the compiled programm will later *use*.