Removing Control Characters

raj8 has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Removing Control Characters by merlyn (Sage) on Feb 22, 2001 at 19:41 UTC
The many `s/\r//g` solutions presented here work, but the preferred idiom (for speed), is `tr/\r//d`. -- Randal L. Schwartz, Perl hacker	[reply]
vi Rooolzzz by grinder (Bishop) on Feb 22, 2001 at 19:29 UTC
`:%s/^V^M` oh, you meant perl... `perl -ibak -pe 's/\r//' README.DOS` Update: I actually wanted the title to be `vi` roolz, but it turns out you can't have html tags in titles, which meant that the title was munged. Fixed now.	[reply]
Re: Removing Control Characters by zigster (Hermit) on Feb 22, 2001 at 19:33 UTC
OUTSTANDING!!! I love PM I really do, how did I not know about -i, what a cool and goovey flag. It is times like this when I just boggle at perl, how can one language be so versitile. Ignore my node later raj8 this is a far better way of doing what you want. Although I would recomend the $ in the regexp: `perl -ibak -pe 's/\r$//' README.DOS` [download] -- Zigster	[reply] [d/l]
Re: ttvi/tt Rooolzzz by asmodai (Novice) on Feb 22, 2001 at 19:56 UTC
Although most of the time you want to use: `:%s/^V^M//g` --Jeroen/Asmodai	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Removing Control Characters by coreolyn (Parson) on Feb 22, 2001 at 21:42 UTC
I'm probably going to get downvoted for this but many unix platforms have a dos2unix utility. `dos2unix ./dosfile > ./unixfile` coreolyn	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: Removing Control Characters by raj8 (Sexton) on Aug 21, 2002 at 17:05 UTC
You didn't get downgraded on that. I liked the quick and simple option. I liked the perl options too, but yours was easily done on a Solaris box. Thanks for the added wisdom. raj8	[reply]
Re (tilly) 1: Removing Control Characters by tilly (Archbishop) on Feb 22, 2001 at 23:13 UTC
If you have some files from Macs as well as DOS: `perl -pi.bak -e 's/\r\n?/\n/g' file1 file2` [download] The point being that this will correctly convert both \r\n and \r line endings.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Removing Control Characters by zigster (Hermit) on Feb 22, 2001 at 19:30 UTC
`perl -p -e "s/\r$//" (FileName)` [download] this will print the file to std out DO NOT be tempted to redirected back to the original file as you will truncate it. Something like `perl -p -e "s/\r$//" (FileName) > op;mv op (FileName)` [download] Will strip the ^M's and put the file back where it started. HTH -- Zigster	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Re: Removing Control Characters by McD (Chaplain) on Feb 23, 2001 at 00:09 UTC
zigster writes: DO NOT be tempted to redirected back to the original file as you will truncate it. Better yet, use Perl's in place file editing feature: `perl -p -i -e 's/\r$//' (filename)` Plus, if you use -i.foo a backup copy of filename before the changes will be stored in "filename.foo" Peace, -McD	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Removing Control Characters by unixwzrd (Beadle) on Feb 22, 2001 at 19:33 UTC
Try using the regex: `s/^M//g` [download] That should do the trick for you. I hope I don't have to mention that the "^" is not a caret which would simply result in anchoring an "M" to the beginning of the line, I also leave out the "$" since they might be in other places in the file. I try not to make assumptions... (It's early and I'm just getting coffee...) Update: Pet peeve - Users (developers) who use Samba mounts and "notepad" to edit source and data files to be used by the Sun box... Mike - mps@discomsys.com "The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen... and stupidity." Harlan Ellison	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Removing Control Characters by converter (Priest) on Feb 22, 2001 at 20:09 UTC
Assuming you're working from the command line: `perl -015 -pi.bak -e "chomp" filename` [download]	[reply] [d/l]