tofrodos(1) General Commands Manual tofrodos(1)
NAME
tofrodos - Converts text files between DOS and Unix formats.
SYNOPSIS
fromdos [ options ] [file...]
todos [ options ] [file...]
DESCRIPTION
DOS text files traditionally have carriage return and line feed pairs as their newline characters while Unix text files have the line feed
as their newline character. fromdos converts text files from the DOS format to the Unix format, while todos converts text files from the
Unix format to the DOS format.
The programs accept multiple filenames and wildcards as their arguments. You may also use them in a pipe. If either program finds its
input redirected, it will process stdin and place the output on stdout.
OPTIONS
-a Always convert. If converting from DOS to Unix, this option will cause the program to remove ALL carriage returns. The default is to
remove carriage returns only if they are followed by line feeds. If converting from Unix to DOS, this option will cause the program
to convert ALL linefeeds to carriage return pairs. The default is to convert linefeeds only if they are not already preceded by a
carriage return.
-b Make a backup of original file. The original file is renamed with the original filename and a .bak extension. For example, a file
called "filename.ext" becomes "filename.ext.bak". Important: the program behaves differently if it is compiled for DOS (as compared
to being compiled for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X or other systems). In view of the filename restrictions present on DOS, the DOS exe-
cutable will strip the original file extension, if any, from the file before appending the .bak extension. For example, "file-
name.ext" becomes "filename.bak".
-d Convert from DOS to Unix. This forces the program to convert the file in a particular direction. By default, if the program is named
fromdos or dos2unix, it will assume that the input file is in a DOS format and convert it to a Unix format. If the program is named
todos or unix2dos, it will assume that the input file is in a Unix format and convert it to a DOS format. Using the -d option forces
the program to convert from a DOS format to a Unix format regardless of how the program is named. Likewise, using the -u option
forces the program to convert from a Unix format to a DOS format regardless of the name of the program.
-e Abort processing on any error in any file. Normally, the program will simply skip to process the next file on the command line when
it encounters any errors. This option causes it to abort on errors.
-f Force: convert even if the file is not writeable (read-only). By default, if fromdos or todos finds that the file does not have
write permission, it will not process that file. This option forces the conversion even if the file is read-only.
-h Display a short help screen on the program usage and quit.
-l<logfile>
Log error messages to <logfile>. Note that if your command line has an error, such as when you specify an unknown option, the error
message for the command line option error will be issued to stderr instead and not logged.
-o Overwrite the original file (no backup). This is the default.
-p Preserve file ownership and time. On systems like Linux, the file ownership will only be preserved if the user is root, otherwise it
will just set the file time and silently fail the change of file ownership. If you want a warning message when the file ownership
cannot be changed, use -v.
-u Convert from Unix to DOS. See the -d option above for more information.
-v Verbose.
-V Show version message and quit.
AUTHOR
The program and its documentation are copyrighted (c) 1996-2008 by Christopher Heng. All rights reserved. They are distributed under the
terms of the GNU General Public License Version 2.
The latest version of tofrodos can be obtained from
http://www.thefreecountry.com/tofrodos/index.shtml
2011 Version 1.7.9 tofrodos(1)