End-of-transmission character
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2008) |
In telecommunication, an end-of-transmission character (EOT) is a transmission control character used to indicate the conclusion of a transmission that may have included one or more texts and any associated message headings.[1]
An EOT is often used to initiate other functions, such as releasing circuits, disconnecting terminals, or placing receive terminals in a standby condition.[1] In Unix-like systems, the character is used to signal an end-of-file when typing at a terminal or terminal emulator.[citation needed]
In Unicode, the hexadecimal code number is 0x04. It can be referred to as control-D, ^D in the caret notation.[citation needed]
[edit] Demonstration in Linux
The 'End of Transmission' meaning of the control-D character can be shown with the cat program on the Linux operating system.
Run the 'cat' command with no arguments, so that it accepts its input from your keyboard and prints output to your screen. Type a few characters without pressing Enter, then type control-D to indicate End of Transmission. The characters you have typed to that point are sent to cat, which then writes them to the screen. If you type control-D without typing any characters first, you terminate the input stream and the program ends.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
This article incorporates public domain material from the General Services Administration document "Federal Standard 1037C".
