Replace a ^M character in Vi

I'm responding to this old post because it ranks well on Google and the answers are quite light...

In short, just type in vim:
:set fileformat=unix

and the file is converted with Unix line endings.
Conversely:
:set fileformat=dos
will allow Windows users to read your file comfortably. This command sets the file format, so there’s no need to do it again each time you open it.

The Unix command
file my_file.txt
allows you to know the type of my_file.txt (or any file with valid mime content)

And indeed, with the tofrodos package installed, you have the commands:
fromdos my_file.txt
todos my_file.txt
which have quite explicit names.

In the same category in vim:
:set fileencoding=utf-8
converts the iso-something or latinX file to utf8

Conversely:
:set fileencoding=iso-8859-15
converts the file to be readable on win98 or for your outdated website ]:->

On the command line, "iconv" will do wonders. For more precision:
man iconv

Hello Guin,

To complete the answer, in "vi", you can type non-printable characters like "^M" (which means "Ctrl-M", this combination gives the ASCII code equivalent to the "enter" key) by pressing "Ctrl-v" followed by your non-printable key.

So by typing Ctrl-v then Ctrl-M, you get a "^M" understood by vi as the non-printable character Ctrl-M.

Dal

Here is the response:

type the following command:

:1$ s/\r//g

Thank you for your availability

Hello,
For inexplicable reasons, dos2unix (or fromdos) is ineffective on this file filled with ^M and that is just one huge line!

To replace ^M with an actual line break, you can do:

:% s/^M/\r/g (where ^M is obtained as mentioned above: Ctrl V + Ctrl M )

but
:% s/\r/\r/g works just as well!!! (vim 7 on Linux Debian etch)

(the reasons might be that a mac2unix was needed?)

Hello,

The Unix command
file mon_fichier.txt
allows you to know the type of mon_fichier.txt

Additionally, the cat command allows you to see non-printable characters

cat -A fichier.txt

--
106485010510997108

Hi,

The file in question was it previously stored under Windows?

I had a somewhat similar problem (line breaks with a \M or L, I can't remember the letter), a script that I had stored under Windows and read with vi under Linux.

I used the 'dos2unix' program

Then the script was like new :)

Luc L.
[Gentoo] finally :Þ

voui, I subscribe, although at my place the machine is called fromdos

fromdos < yourdisgustingfile > yourcleanfile

but just a note regarding your replacement in vi: control characters, you don't type them with a hat (even escaped) followed by the character. to get your "hat-M" you type Ctrl-V Ctrl-M

all control characters are typed like this, Ctrl-V followed by your control character

which results in (but I'm not sure this will appear... oh well no, it doesn't appear)

one in the fields
you’ll have it nasty

Hello,

we don't replace them with line breaks as we would like
It's normal since that's what I executed and I must have misunderstood that this is what you actually want ;-)

Otherwise

lami20j@debian:~$ cat -v fic_ line1^Mline2^Mline3^Mline4^M lami20j@debian:~$ perl -pi.orig -e 's/\r/\n/g' fic_ lami20j@debian:~$ cat -v fic_ line1 line2 line3 line4 lami20j@debian:~$ cat -v fic_.orig line1^Mline2^Mline3^Mline4^M 

And if you want to keep the DOS format

lami20j@debian:~$ cat -v fic_ line1^Mline2^Mline3^Mline4^M lami20j@debian:~$ perl -pi.orig -e 's/\r/\r\n/g' fic_ lami20j@debian:~$ cat -v fic_ line1^M line2^M line3^M line4^M lami20j@debian:~$ cat -v fic_.orig line1^Mline2^Mline3^Mline4^M 

and also to avoid issues with file exchanges via a Windows share or to Windows, we can do

mount //hostWindows/montage /media/reseau/ -o user,uid=me,gid=me,conv=auto,iocharset=utf8

very handy when sending or receiving configuration files to Windows.