What is the function of "\n"?

Although experimentation could have revealed this answer, the underlying function of \n is a very good question to have asked.

What you are seeing is common in all programming languages and is called an Escape Sequence. When you are printing strings you may oftentimes want to manipulate the way the text displays, or more crucially, include characters that would normally break the code (including quotation marks within the string for instance).

To accomplish these tasks with little hassle you begin with a backslash ( ** ) within the string, which in essence tells the compiler “Stop! The upcoming text is special.”

In the example provided we use the newline escape sequence (\n) which, as you probably have long discovered, creates a new line for the forthcoming text. Here is a list of other escape sequences you can use:

 \" – double quote
 \\ – single backslash
 \a – bell/alert
 \b – backspace
 \r – carriage return
 \n – newline
 \s – space
 \t – tab

So if I wanted to print the string This is a “string” with troublesome\reactive characters! I could use the code puts "This is a \"string\" with troublesome\\reactive characters!"

Be curious. Experiment. Try removing the \n or adding another one. I’m sure you can figure out what it is in less than a minute. Less than it took you to post this question, anyway.

i understand the concept, now (thanks Matthew), but removing the n (and in fact, entering in a number of these codes after /)doesnt make any difference in how it displays. could it be my browser?

as it seems /n adds a new line as Mathew explained above, for instance you can replace #puts with #print by adding \n after the thing you want to #print