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Full Discussion: How to find the ^M(control M) character in unix file?
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers How to find the ^M(control M) character in unix file? Post 302264598 by stanleypane on Thursday 4th of December 2008 09:38:47 AM
Old 12-04-2008
^M is a carriage return.

You should understand a few things first:

CR = \r = Carriage Return
LF = \n = Line Feed

In DOS, all lines end with a CR/LF combination or \r\n.
In UNIX, all lines end with a single LF or \n.

The ^M that you are seeing is actually a CR or \r. If you want to test for carraige returns in a file, you want to look for \r. Try this on the file:

Code:
od -c filename.txt

You'll see tabs, vertical tabs, carriage returns, linefeeds and whatnot using the slash notation. I find this to be the best method for determining what actual characters are in a file.

Or, if you just want to see the ^M notation, you can use cat, like so:

Code:
cat -v filename.txt

If you want to remove the ^M characters, you can use dos2unix as suggested above, or the correct tr syntax:

Code:
tr -d '\r' < infile.txt > outfile.txt

These 4 Users Gave Thanks to stanleypane For This Post:
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LEARN ABOUT REDHAT

mac2unix

dos2unix(1)						      General Commands Manual						       dos2unix(1)

NAME

       dos2unix - DOS/MAC to UNIX text file format converter

SYNOPSYS

       dos2unix [options] [-c convmode] [-o file ...] [-n infile outfile ...]

       Options:

       [-hkqV] [--help] [--keepdate] [--quiet] [--version]

DESCRIPTION

       This manual page documents dos2unix, the program that converts plain text files in DOS/MAC format to UNIX format.

OPTIONS

       The following options are available:

       -h --help
	      Print online help.

       -k --keepdate
	      Keep the date stamp of output file same as input file.

       -q --quiet
	      Quiet mode. Suppress all warning and messages.

       -V --version
	      Prints version information.

       -c --convmode convmode
	      Sets conversion mode. Simulates dos2unix under SunOS.

       -o --oldfile file ...
	      Old file mode. Convert the file and write output to it. The program default to run in this mode. Wildcard names may be used.

       -n --newfile infile outfile ...
	      New  file  mode.	Convert the infile and write output to outfile. File names must be given in pairs and wildcard names should NOT be
	      used or you WILL lost your files.

EXAMPLES

       Get input from stdin and write output to stdout.

	      dos2unix

       Convert and replace a.txt. Convert and replace b.txt.

	      dos2unix a.txt b.txt

	      dos2unix -o a.txt b.txt

       Convert and replace a.txt in ASCII conversion mode.  Convert and replace b.txt in ISO conversion mode.  Convert	c.txt  from  Mac  to  Unix
       ascii format.

	      dos2unix a.txt -c iso b.txt

	      dos2unix -c ascii a.txt -c iso b.txt

	      dos2unix -c mac a.txt b.txt

       Convert and replace a.txt while keeping original date stamp.

	      dos2unix -k a.txt

	      dos2unix -k -o a.txt

       Convert a.txt and write to e.txt.

	      dos2unix -n a.txt e.txt

       Convert a.txt and write to e.txt, keep date stamp of e.txt same as a.txt.

	      dos2unix -k -n a.txt e.txt

       Convert and replace a.txt. Convert b.txt and write to e.txt.

	      dos2unix a.txt -n b.txt e.txt

	      dos2unix -o a.txt -n b.txt e.txt

       Convert c.txt and write to e.txt. Convert and replace a.txt.  Convert and replace b.txt. Convert d.txt and write to f.txt.

	      dos2unix -n c.txt e.txt -o a.txt b.txt -n d.txt f.txt

DIAGNOSTICS

BUGS

       The program does not work properly under MSDOS in stdio processing mode.  If you know why is that so, please tell me.

AUTHORS

       Benjamin Lin - <blin@socs.uts.edu.au>

       Bernd Johannes Wuebben (mac2unix mode) <wuebben@kde.org>

MISCELLANY

       Tested environment:

	      Linux 1.2.0 with GNU C 2.5.8

	      SunOS 4.1.3 with GNU C 2.6.3

	      MS-DOS 6.20 with Borland C++ 4.02

       Suggestions and bug reports are welcome.

SEE ALSO

       unix2dos(1) mac2unix(1)

1995.03.31							   dos2unix v3.0						       dos2unix(1)
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