“plain text styling”…

[Sławomir Osipiuk]

On Wednesday, 11 January 2023, 07:25:34 (-05:00), Kent Karlsson via Unicode wrote:
>
> Yes, but there are different kinds of on/off switches, syntaxwise. Some fit in an otherwise plain text context, others don’t.
>
I still think the distinction you're drawing – that codes below U+0020 are not "plain text" – is arbitrary. What special quality do they have? Can't be typed on a keyboard? Don't have visible glyphs? Affect the display of other characters? Are default-ignorable in Unicode? None of these things are unique to them.

"Plain text" is a loose definition because "formatted text" is equally loose. Context matters. It reminds me of "paying cash", which can mean different things when you're buying a hamburger and buying a corporation.

>
> Actually there is no ESC. There are CR, LF, FF. And then a code ***called*** ESC, but it is not at all ESC, it is SS2, SINGLE SHIFT 2, it works exactly as SS2.
>

It rather works like SS1, which we sadly never got in ECMA-48 or ECMA-35. Then SS2 actually is SS2.