Editing 1137: RTL

{{comic
| number    = 1137
| date      = November 21, 2012
| title     = ‮LTR
| image     = rtl.png
| titletext = Collaborative editing can quickly become a textual rap battle fought with increasingly convoluted invocations of U+202a to U+202e
}}

==Explanation==
<!-- please don't vandalise this article by adding the unicode reverse character -->
U+202e is a {{w|unicode control characters|unicode control character}} that changes all subsequent text to right-to-left (RTL, as the title references). In the comic, [[Black Hat]] tires of [[Cueball]]'s complaining and inserts a U+202e character in the middle of Cueball's speech, turning his complaints into gibberish - sentences that must be read from right-to-left. 

The title of the comic builds on this theme, with the title of the webpage it is hosted on being LTR in some browsers (see [[#Trivia|trivia]]), the reverse of the comic name.

When multiple writers work on the same text, arguments can often arise with some writers resorting to vandalizing the works of other writers. The title text takes this up a level, suggesting the use of U+202e and other direction control characters in editor wars to disrupt other people's work. For reference for future wars U+202c returns text back to its normal direction.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball and Black Hat. Cueball is standing. Black Hat is sitting down and using a laptop.]
:Cueball: And that's not even the worst part! The ''worst'' part is that—
:Black Hat: U+202e
:Cueball: ...neve t'ndid yehT— (Flipped translation = "— They didn't even...")
:Cueball: ?lleh eht tahW... (Flipped translation = "...What the hell?")
:Cueball: ...uoy did woH (Flipped translation = "How did you...")
:Cueball: .elohssA... (Flipped translation = "...Asshole.")

==Trivia==
*The title given in the web browser for the comic on the xkcd website actually has a U+202e character preceding it; 
**This only seem to affect some browsers: The page title is "xkcd: [U+202e]LTR", which causes Firefox to use "xkcd: xoferiF allizoM - RTL" as the window title. This also occurs in Chromium and Opera.
*In the version originally published there was a typo in the reverse text ("ETH" instead of "EHT" for "THE"). This mistake was corrected within a couple of hours.
*In some browsers (for instance explorer), this page's title damages the appearance of all older entries in the [http://xkcd.com/archive/ archive page]. 
**Here is a picture example for people without access to explorer: [[Media:Reverse archive.jpg|Reverse archive]].

==Unicode Control Characters==
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Unicode number !! Name !! Meaning
|-
| U+202a || LEFT-TO-RIGHT EMBEDDING || The following text will be left-to-right. This will not change directionality of characters, so for example Arabic letters will stay right-to-left. This character alone does nothing in an English text, since the text direction is left-to-right by default.
|-
| U+202b || RIGHT-TO-LEFT EMBEDDING || The following text will be right-to-left. This will not change directionality of characters, so Latin letters will stay left-to-right. Full stops, which don't have a directionality on their own, will be left of the sentence. Use this character for some little misplacings that cause big confusion.
|-
| U+202c || POP DIRECTIONAL FORMATTING || The following text is formatted like the text before the last U+202a, U+202b, U+202d or U+202e character.
|-
| U+202d || LEFT-TO-RIGHT OVERRIDE || The following text will be left-to-right. Additionally, the directionality of characters is changed to left-to-right. Used alone in an English text, this will only affect characters that are right-to-left by default, like Arabic letters.
|-
| U+202e || RIGHT-TO-LEFT OVERRIDE || The following text will be right-to-left. Additionally, the directionality of characters is changed to right-to-left. Use this character to completely screw up an English text.
|}

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Black Hat]]
[[Category:Computers]]