OS X (Apple)

Shell method:
awk '{gsub("XXX","\r");print}' yourfile > newfile

I searched UNIX.COM for "awk global replace" and found help in the sixth returned link.

You should try that with "vi global replace" if you are determined to do it in vi.
Use the whacky search button in the upper right corner of the page.

Did you try replacing the "^M" with "\r"?

Removal is not a problem. The only file I have has one line with >400,000 characters. Where ^M was at one time now has XXX but this is still all on one line.

I need to insert a carriage return at every instance of ^M.

tr, awk, or simply substitution with vi will work but I'm not using the proper syntax to get a carriage return or newline.

***********
Just tried a few more and one worked!!

within vi....
:%s/XXX/\r/g

changed them all.

I would not have thought of trying \r had I not seen that in your awk statement.

Thanks!

Or if OS X has dos2unix(1) then:

Code:

$ dos2unix inputfile.dos.txt > outputfile.unix.txt

would do the trick.

dos2unix for OS X seems to be available from here: Dos2unix version 3.1 - How to Download and Install on Mac OS X