How to enter special characters in a text file using vi?


 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers How to enter special characters in a text file using vi?
Prev   Next
# 1  
Old 09-15-2015
How to enter special characters in a text file using vi?

Hi,

I need to create a test text file with the special characters \342\200\223 in it and to be able to use sed maybe to delete them

I tried doing it using vi by pressing CTRL-V and then typing 342 but it does not work. After pressing CTRL-V and typing 342 it seems to just insert the numbers 342 in it, tried doing CTRL-V and then \342 does not work either.

Eventually, I would want to search and delete all non-printable characters but at the moment, this is what I am wanting to test on as these characters appear intermittently in a file that I am trying to load into the database.

Thanks in advance.
 
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

Rename File Name with Special Characters

I am trying to rename files with spaces and other characters and not able to be successful. FileNames: UPLOAD REFERENCE.xls UPLOAD MASS REFERENCE.XLS find /UPLOAD REFERENCE/ -depth -type f -name "* *" -exec rename " " "_" "{}" ";" The above one is successful to replace spaces... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: eskay
1 Replies

2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Search special characters in a file and replace with meaningful text messages like Hello

Search special characters in a file and replace with meaningful text messages like Hello (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: raka_rjit
2 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Remove Special Characters Within Text

Hi, I have a "|" delimited file that is exported from a database. There is one column in the file which has description/comments entered by some application user. It has "Control-M" character and "New Line" character in between the text. Hence, when i export the data, this record with the new... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: tarun.trehan
4 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

File containing special characters

Hello All, I am facing challenges in order to transfer a file from windows to unix box,the file contains a special character '×' ,now when I am transferring the file from windows to unix that special character converted to something else like 'Ã' ,another thing I have noticed that the hardware is... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: prarat
1 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

find text enclosed between special characters

Hi, I'm trying to find all DISTINCT words having _mr in the line and ENCLOSED in '/'. For eg below is the text in a file.. /database/new_mr254/1 /database/rawdb/views/new_mr254/1 /database/project/rawdb/tables/new_mr232/1 /database/project/rawdb/views/new_mr253/1... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: northwest
5 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Adding text to file on certain lines with(special characters)

I need to add "new lines" of text with special characters, to specific lines in the file. There are 3 modifications needed. Been testing 2 here without success. #!/usr/bin/perl use FileHandle; $file=FileHandle->new; $FILENAME="/opt/etc/usr/file.txt"; $file->open ("<$FILENAME") or die... (13 Replies)
Discussion started by: A4ron4perl
13 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Remove special characters from text file

Hi All, i am trying to remove all special charecters().,/\~!@#%^$*&^_- and others from a tab delimited file. I am using the following code. while read LINE do echo $LINE | tr -d '=;:`"<>,./?!@#$%^&(){}'|tr -d "-"|tr -d "'" | tr -d "_" done < trial.txt > output.txt Problem ... (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: kkb
10 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

sed usage with special characters - text manipulation

I'm trying to use sed to replace string in text file but I've some problems with slash and new-line for example I have to replace this string: \> signal_rssi=" or this string where new-line is in the middle of the string: " /> I'm using this code for the first case but it doesn't... (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: TheMrOrange
10 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

remove special characters from text using PERL

Hi, I am stuck with a problem here. Suppose i have a variable which is assigned some string containing special charatcers. for eg: $a="abcdef^bbwk#kdbcd@"; I have to remove the special characters using Perl. The text is assigned to the variable implicitly. How to do it? (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: agarwal
1 Replies

10. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

how to see special characters in a file using vi

Hi, I have a file which has special characters. I can't see them when I "vi" the file. But I am sure there are some special un seen characters. How can I see them? Please help. Thx (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: jingi1234
6 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question
trbsd(1)						      General Commands Manual							  trbsd(1)

NAME
trbsd - Translates characters SYNOPSIS
trbsd [-Acs] string1 string2 trbsd -d [-Ac] string1 The trbsd command copies characters from the standard input to the standard output with substitution or deletion of selected characters. OPTIONS
Translates on a byte-by-byte basis. When you specify this option, trbsd does not support extended characters. Complements (inverts) the set of characters in string1 with respect to the universe of characters whose codes are 001 through 377 octal if you specify -A, and all characters if you do not specify -A. Deletes all characters in string1 from output. Changes characters that are repeated output charac- ters in string2 into single characters. DESCRIPTION
Input characters from string1 are replaced with the corresponding characters in string2. The trbsd command cannot handle an ASCII NUL (00) in string1 or string2; it always deletes NUL from the input. The tr command is a System V compatible version of trbsd. Abbreviations such as a-z, standing for a string of characters whose ASCII codes run from character a to character z, inclusive, can be used to introduce ranges of characters. Note that brackets are not special characters. Use the escape character (backslash) to remove the special meaning from any character in a string. Use the followed by 1, 2, or 3 octal digits for the code of a character. If a given character appears more than once in string1, the character in string2 corresponding to its last appearance in string1 will be used in the translation. EXAMPLES
To translate braces into parentheses, enter: trbsd '{}' '()' <textfile >newfile This translates each { (left brace) to a ( (left parenthesis) and each } (right brace) to a ) (right parenthesis). All other char- acters remain unchanged. To translate lowercase ASCII characters to uppercase, enter: trbsd a-z A-Z <textfile >newfile The two strings can be of different lengths: trbsd 0-9 # <textfile >newfile This translates each digit to a # (number sign); if string2 is too short, it is padded to the length of string1 by duplicating its last character. To translate each string of digits to a single # (number sign), enter: trbsd -s 0-9 # <textfile >newfile To trans- late all ASCII characters that are not specified, enter: trbsd -c ' -~' 'A-_' <textfile >newfile This translates each nonprinting ASCII character to the corresponding control key letter (01 translates to A, 02 to B, and so on). ASCII DEL (177), the character that follows ~ (tilde), translates to a ? (question mark). SEE ALSO
Commands: ed(1), sh(1), tr(1) Files: ascii(5) trbsd(1)