UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hi,
I have this file which has some octal NULL characters (\000). I need to replace these characters with an ASCII NULL.

I've tried using Perl, the UNIX tr command..

History of this
I received a COBOL generated file, ran the od command to convert to a xxx byte per record file.

Now, some of the records that have octal NULLS wont convert and it merges the next line to this record with the current line. I found this at
http://www.canberra.edu.au/~sam/whp/sed-tricks.html

Type in a text file named "f127.TR" with the line starting tr above. Print the file on screen with cat f127.TR command, replace "filein" and "fileout" with your file names, not same the file, then copy and paste the line and run (execute) it. Please, remember this does not solve Unix end-of-file problem, that is the character '\000', also known as a 'null', in the file. Nor does it handle binary file problem, that is a file starting with two zeroes '\060' and '\060' http://www.canberra.edu.au/~sam/whp/sed-tricks.html

Any idea how I could do this in UNIX without using C or a different programming language.

Thanks,
U

not sure what the difference is between a null character and an ascii null. Perhaps you mean the space character. Anyway, tr can translate any char to another...

Code:

$ printf "a\000\n">file1
$ printf "b\000\n">>file1
$ od -hc file1
0000000 0061 620a 0a00
          a  \0  \n   b  \0  \n
0000006
$ tr '\0' ' ' < file1 > file2
$ od -hc file2
0000000 2061 620a 0a20
          a      \n   b      \n
0000006

found solution or not ???
let me now

An ascii null is represented by octal \000 so your question is senseless. Your reference that you quoted even mentions this:
the character '\000', also known as a 'null'

So you want to convert \000 to nulls? Good news! You're done.