delimiterterminologysemanticsseparator

When to use the terms "delimiter," "terminator," and "separator"


What are the semantics behind usage of the words "delimiter," "terminator," and "separator"? For example, I believe that a terminator would occur after each token and a separator between each token. Is a delimiter the same as either of these, or are they simply forms of a delimiter?

SO has all three as tags, yet they are not synonyms of each other. Is this because they are all truly different?


Solution

  • Technically a delimiter goes between things, perhaps in order to tell you where one field ends and another begins, such as in a comma-separated-value (CSV) file.

    A terminator goes at the end of something, terminating the line/input/whatever.

    A separator can be a delimiter or anything else that separates things. Consider the spaces between words in the English language for example.

    You could argue that a newline character is a line terminator, a delimiter of lines or something that separates two lines. For this reason there are a few different newline-type characters in the Unicode specification.