Rust Line Endings

OS	Status
Ubuntu-latest
macOS-latest
Windows-latest

A Rust crate to detect, normalize, and convert line endings across platforms, including support for character streams. Ensures consistent handling of LF, CRLF, and CR line endings in text processing.

Install

cargo add line-ending

Usage

Detect for Current Platform

Line endings can be auto-detected for the current platform.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let detected = LineEnding::from_current_platform();

#[cfg(target_os = "windows")]
assert_eq!(detected, LineEnding::CRLF, "Windows should detect CRLF");

#[cfg(target_family = "unix")]
assert_eq!(detected, LineEnding::LF, "Unix/macOS should detect LF");

#[cfg(target_family = "wasm")]
assert_eq!(detected, LineEnding::LF, "WASM should default to LF");

Split into Multiple Strings

Split a string into a vector of strings using the auto-detected line ending parsed from the string.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let crlf = LineEnding::split("first\r\nsecond\r\nthird");
let cr = LineEnding::split("first\rsecond\rthird");
let lf = LineEnding::split("first\nsecond\nthird");

let expected = vec!["first", "second", "third"];

assert_eq!(crlf, expected);
assert_eq!(cr, expected);
assert_eq!(lf, expected);

Join Multiple Strings into a Single String

Join a vector of strings using the specified line ending.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let lines = vec![
  "first".to_string(),
  "second".to_string(),
  "third".to_string(),
];

assert_eq!(
    LineEnding::CRLF.join(lines.clone()),
    "first\r\nsecond\r\nthird"
);
assert_eq!(
    LineEnding::CR.join(lines.clone()),
    "first\rsecond\rthird"
);
assert_eq!(
    LineEnding::LF.join(lines.clone()),
    "first\nsecond\nthird"
);

Change Line Ending Type

Apply a specific line ending type to an existing string.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let mixed_text = "first line\r\nsecond line\rthird line\nfourth line\n";

assert_eq!(
    LineEnding::CRLF.apply(mixed_text),
    "first line\r\nsecond line\r\nthird line\r\nfourth line\r\n"
);
assert_eq!(
    LineEnding::CR.apply(mixed_text),
    "first line\rsecond line\rthird line\rfourth line\r"
);
assert_eq!(
    LineEnding::LF.apply(mixed_text),
    "first line\nsecond line\nthird line\nfourth line\n"
);

Auto-identify Line Ending Type

Detect the predominant line ending style used in the input string.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let crlf = "first line\r\nsecond line\r\nthird line";
let cr = "first line\rsecond line\rthird line";
let lf = "first line\nsecond line\nthird line";

assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(crlf), LineEnding::CRLF);
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(cr), LineEnding::CR);
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(lf), LineEnding::LF);

Normalize

Convert all line endings in a string to LF (\n) for consistent processing.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let crlf = "first\r\nsecond\r\nthird";
let cr = "first\rsecond\rthird";
let lf = "first\nsecond\nthird";

assert_eq!(LineEnding::normalize(crlf), lf);
assert_eq!(LineEnding::normalize(cr), lf);
assert_eq!(LineEnding::normalize(lf), lf);

Denormalize

Restore line endings in a string to the specified type.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let lf = "first\nsecond\nthird";

let crlf_restored = LineEnding::CRLF.denormalize(lf);
let cr_restored = LineEnding::CR.denormalize(lf);
let lf_restored = LineEnding::LF.denormalize(lf);

assert_eq!(crlf_restored, "first\r\nsecond\r\nthird");
assert_eq!(cr_restored, "first\rsecond\rthird");
assert_eq!(lf_restored, "first\nsecond\nthird");

Handling Mixed-Type Line Endings

When a string contains multiple types of line endings (LF, CRLF, and CR), the LineEnding::from method will detect the most frequent line ending type and return it as the dominant one. This ensures a consistent approach to mixed-line-ending detection.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let mixed_type = "line1\nline2\r\nline3\nline4\nline5\r\n";
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(mixed_type), LineEnding::LF); // `LF` is the most common

The detection algorithm works as follows:

1. Counts occurrences of each line ending type (LF, CRLF, CR).
2. Selects the most frequent one as the detected line ending.
3. Defaults to CRLF if all are equally present or if the input is empty.

Edge Cases & Examples

Case 1: One Line Ending Type is Clearly Dominant

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let mostly_crlf = "line1\r\nline2\r\nline3\nline4\r\nline5\r\n"; 
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(mostly_crlf), LineEnding::CRLF); // `CRLF` is the most common

let mostly_cr = "line1\rline2\rline3\nline4\rline5\r"; 
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(mostly_cr), LineEnding::CR); // `CR` is the most common

Case 2: All Line Endings Appear Equally

If LF, CRLF, and CR all appear the same number of times, the function will return CRLF as a tie-breaker.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let equal_mixed = "line1\r\nline2\nline3\rline4\r\nline5\nline6\r"; 
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(equal_mixed), LineEnding::CRLF); // `CRLF` > `CR` > `LF`

CRLF is chosen as a tie-breaker because it represents both CR and LF, making it the most inclusive option.

Case 3: Single Line Containing Multiple Line Endings

If a single line contains different line endings, the function still chooses the most frequent across the entire string.

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let mixed_on_one_line = "line1\r\nline2\rline3\r\nline4\r\nline5\r"; 
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(mixed_on_one_line), LineEnding::CRLF); // `CRLF` appears the most overall

Case 4: Empty Input Defaults to CRLF

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let empty_text = "";
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(empty_text), LineEnding::CRLF); // Defaults to `CRLF`

Additional Mixed-Type Code Examples

Counting Mixed Types

Count occurrences of each line ending type in the given string.

use line_ending::{LineEnding, LineEndingScores};
// `LineEndingScores` is a hash map that associates each line ending type with
// its occurrence count.

let mostly_lf = "line1\nline2\r\nline3\rline4\nline5\nline6\n";
assert_eq!(LineEnding::from(mostly_lf), LineEnding::LF);
assert_eq!(
    LineEnding::score_mixed_types(mostly_lf,),
    [
        (LineEnding::CRLF, 1),
        (LineEnding::CR, 1),
        (LineEnding::LF, 4),
    ]
    .into_iter()
    .collect::<LineEndingScores>()
);

Split as a Specific Type

If you want to forcefully split by a certain type.

use line_ending::{LineEnding};

let mostly_lf = "line1\nline2\r\nline3\rline4\nline5\nline6\n";
let split_crlf = LineEnding::CRLF.split_with(mostly_lf);

assert_eq!(split_crlf, vec!["line1\nline2", "line3\rline4\nline5\nline6\n"]);

Handling Character Streams

When processing text from a stream (for example, when reading from a file), you often work with a Peekable iterator over characters. Manually checking for a newline (such as '\n') isn’t enough to handle all platforms, because Windows uses a two‑character sequence (\r\n) and some older systems use just \r.

This crate provides a trait extension (via the PeekableLineEndingExt trait) that adds a consume_line_ending() method to a Peekable<Chars> iterator. This method automatically detects and consumes the full line break sequence (whether it’s LF, CR, or CRLF) from the stream.

The following example demonstrates how to split a character stream into lines without having to manually handle each line-ending case:

use line_ending::{LineEnding, PeekableLineEndingExt};

let text = "line1\r\nline2\nline3\rline4";
let mut it = text.chars().peekable();
let mut lines = Vec::new();
let mut current_line = String::new();

while it.peek().is_some() {
    // consume_line_ending() will automatically consume the full line break (CR, LF, or CRLF)
    if it.consume_line_ending().is_some() {
        lines.push(current_line);
        current_line = String::new();
    } else {
        current_line.push(it.next().unwrap());
    }
}
lines.push(current_line);

assert_eq!(lines, vec!["line1", "line2", "line3", "line4"]);

Note: Mixed-type line-ending character streams are automatically handled.

Escaped vs. Actual Line Endings

Rust treats \\n as a literal sequence rather than an actual newline. This behavior ensures that escaped sequences are not mistakenly interpreted as real line breaks.

For example:

use line_ending::LineEnding;

let lf_with_escaped = "First\\nSecond\nThird";
let result = LineEnding::split(lf_with_escaped);

assert_eq!(result, vec!["First\\nSecond", "Third"]); // Escaped `\\n` remains intact

let lf = "First\nSecond\nThird";
let result_actual = LineEnding::split(lf);

assert_eq!(result_actual, vec!["First", "Second", "Third"]); // Actual `\n` splits

License

Licensed under MIT. See LICENSE for details.