What are carriage return, linefeed, and form feed?

Question

What is the meaning of the following control characters:

1. Carriage return

2. Line feed

3. Form feed

Answer 1

\r is carriage return and moves the cursor back like if i will do-

printf("stackoverflow\rnine")
ninekoverflow

means it has shifted the cursor to the beginning of "stackoverflow" and overwrites the starting four characters since "nine" is four character long.

\n is new line character which changes the line and takes the cursor to the beginning of a new line like-

printf("stackoverflow\nnine")
stackoverflow
nine

\f is form feed, its use has become obsolete but it is used for giving indentation like

printf("stackoverflow\fnine")
stackoverflow
             nine

if i will write like-

printf("stackoverflow\fnine\fgreat")
stackoverflow
             nine
                 great