How to add carriage return in Java?

There are several ways to add a newline in Java. The first one is to use special characters \n or \r. The downside is that it's platform dependent:

• On Unix/Linux/Mac-based OS, use \n
• On Windows-based OS, use \r\n
• On old Mac-based OS, use \r

String str1 = "On Linux\n";
String str2 = "On Windows\r\n";

You can use platform independent functions System.lineSeparator() or System.getProperty("line.separator") that will return the appropriate sequence to create a new line.

String str1 = "begin" + System.lineSeparator() + "end";
String str2 = "begin" + System.getProperty("line.separator") + "end";

The third option is to use platform independent newline character %n . It can be used directly within a string, but must be formatted with System.out.printf or String.format.

String str = "begin %n end";
System.out.printf(str);

String str = String.format("begin %n end");