read -n 1 -s -p \ $'Control-M leaves cursor at beginning of this line. Press Enter. \x0d'

       # Of course, '0d' is the hex equivalent of Control-M.

echo >&2 # The ‘-s’ makes anything typed silent,

       #+ so it is necessary to go to new line explicitly.

read -n 1 -s -p $’Control-J leaves cursor on next line. \x0a’

       #  '0a' is the hex equivalent of Control-J, linefeed.

echo >&2

#

read -n 1 -s -p $’And Control-K\x0bgoes straight down.’ echo >&2 # Control-K is vertical tab.

A better example of the effect of a vertical tab is:

var=$’\x0aThis is the bottom line\x0bThis is the top line\x0a’ echo "$var"

This works the same way as the above example. However:

echo "$var" | col

This causes the right end of the line to be higher than the left end.

It also explains why we started and ended with a line feed –

+ to avoid a garbled screen.

As Lee Maschmeyer explains:

————————–

In the [first vertical tab example] … the vertical tab

+ makes the printing go straight down without a carriage return.

This is true only on devices, such as the Linux console,

+ that can’t go "backward."

The real purpose of VT is to go straight UP, not down.

It can be used to print superscripts on a printer.

The col utility can be used to emulate the proper behavior of VT.