HowTo: Convert Between Unix and Windows text files

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When converting between Unix and Windows text files, you need to consider the differences in the line endings used by each system. Unix uses a line ending of a single line feed character (LF), while Windows uses a combination of a carriage return (CR) and a line feed (LF) character (CRLF).

Here are some ways to convert between Unix and Windows text files:

  1. Using dos2unix and unix2dos commands:
    • The dos2unix command is used to convert a Windows text file to a Unix text file, and unix2dos is used to convert a Unix text file to a Windows text file.
    • Both commands are available in most Linux distributions and can be installed using the package manager.
  2. Using sed command:
    • The sed command can be used to convert a Windows text file to a Unix text file by replacing the CRLF line endings with LF line endings.
    • For example: sed 's/\r$//' windows_file.txt > unix_file.txt
    • Similarly, to convert a Unix text file to a Windows text file, you can replace the LF line endings with CRLF line endings using the sed command:
    • For example: sed 's/$/\r/' unix_file.txt > windows_file.txt
  3. Using text editors:
    • Many text editors, such as vi, nano, and gedit, provide options to convert between Unix and Windows text files.
    • For example, in nano, you can go to the Save Options section and choose either Unix (LF) or Windows (CRLF) as the line ending.

Note: When converting files, it’s always a good idea to keep a backup of the original file in case anything goes wrong during the conversion process.

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