dos2unix(1) 2012-03-13 dos2unix(1)NAMEdos2unix - DOS/Mac to Unix and vice versa text file format converter
SYNOPSISdos2unix [options] [FILE ...] [-n INFILE OUTFILE ...]
unix2dos [options] [FILE ...] [-n INFILE OUTFILE ...]
DESCRIPTION
The Dos2unix package includes utilities "dos2unix" and "unix2dos" to
convert plain text files in DOS or Mac format to Unix format and vice
versa.
In DOS/Windows text files a line break, also known as newline, is a
combination of two characters: a Carriage Return (CR) followed by a
Line Feed (LF). In Unix text files a line break is a single character:
the Line Feed (LF). In Mac text files, prior to Mac OS X, a line break
was single Carriage Return (CR) character. Nowadays Mac OS uses Unix
style (LF) line breaks.
Binary files are automatically skipped, unless conversion is forced.
Non-regular files, such as directories and FIFOs, are automatically
skipped.
Symbolic links and their targets are by default kept untouched.
Symbolic links can optionally be replaced, or the output can be written
to the symbolic link target. Symbolic links on Windows are not
supported. Windows symbolic links always replaced, keeping the targets
unchanged.
Dos2unix was modelled after dos2unix under SunOS/Solaris and has
similar conversion modes.
OPTIONS-- Treat all following options as file names. Use this option if you
want to convert files whose names start with a dash. For instance
to convert a file named "-foo", you can use this command:
dos2unix-- -foo
Or in new file mode:
dos2unix-n -- -foo out.txt
-ascii
Convert only line breaks. This is the default conversion mode.
-iso
Conversion between DOS and ISO-8859-1 character set. See also
section CONVERSION MODES.
-1252
Use Windows code page 1252 (Western European).
-437
Use DOS code page 437 (US). This is the default code page used for
ISO conversion.
-850
Use DOS code page 850 (Western European).
-860
Use DOS code page 860 (Portuguese).
-863
Use DOS code page 863 (French Canadian).
-865
Use DOS code page 865 (Nordic).
-7 Convert 8 bit characters to 7 bit space.
-c, --convmode CONVMODE
Set conversion mode. Where CONVMODE is one of: ascii, 7bit, iso,
mac with ascii being the default.
-f, --force
Force conversion of binary files.
-h, --help
Display help and exit.
-k, --keepdate
Keep the date stamp of output file same as input file.
-L, --license
Display program's license.
-l, --newline
Add additional newline.
dos2unix: Only DOS line breaks are changed to two Unix line breaks.
In Mac mode only Mac line breaks are changed to two Unix line
breaks.
unix2dos: Only Unix line breaks are changed to two DOS line breaks.
In Mac mode Unix line breaks are changed to two Mac line breaks.
-n, --newfile INFILE OUTFILE ...
New file mode. Convert file INFILE and write output to file
OUTFILE. File names must be given in pairs and wildcard names
should not be used or you will lose your files.
-o, --oldfile FILE ...
Old file mode. Convert file FILE and overwrite output to it. The
program default to run in this mode. Wildcard names may be used.
-q, --quiet
Quiet mode. Suppress all warnings and messages. The return value is
zero. Except when wrong command-line options are used.
-s, --safe
Skip binary files (default).
-F, --follow-symlink
Follow symbolic links and convert the targets.
-R, --replace-symlink
Replace symbolic links with converted files (original target files
remain unchanged).
-S, --skip-symlink
Keep symbolic links and targets unchanged (default).
-V, --version
Display version information and exit.
MAC MODE
In normal mode line breaks are converted from DOS to Unix and vice
versa. Mac line breaks are not converted.
In Mac mode line breaks are converted from Mac to Unix and vice versa.
DOS line breaks are not changed.
To run in Mac mode use the command-line option "-c mac" or use the
commands "mac2unix" or "unix2mac".
CONVERSION MODES
Conversion modes ascii, 7bit, and iso are similar to those of
dos2unix/unix2dos under SunOS/Solaris.
ascii
In mode "ascii" only line breaks are converted. This is the default
conversion mode.
Although the name of this mode is ASCII, which is a 7 bit standard,
the actual mode is 8 bit. Use always this mode when converting
Unicode UTF-8 files.
7bit
In this mode all 8 bit non-ASCII characters (with values from 128
to 255) are converted to a 7 bit space.
iso Characters are converted between a DOS character set (code page)
and ISO character set ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) on Unix. DOS characters
without ISO-8859-1 equivalent, for which conversion is not
possible, are converted to a dot. The same counts for ISO-8859-1
characters without DOS counterpart.
When only option "-iso" is used dos2unix will try to determine the
active code page. When this is not possible dos2unix will use
default code page CP437, which is mainly used in the USA. To force
a specific code page use options "-437" (US), "-850" (Western
European), "-860" (Portuguese), "-863" (French Canadian), or "-865"
(Nordic). Windows code page CP1252 (Western European) is also
supported with option "-1252". For other code pages use dos2unix in
combination with iconv(1). Iconv can convert between a long list
of character encodings.
Some examples:
Convert from DOS default code page to Unix Latin-1
dos2unix-iso -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from DOS CP850 to Unix Latin-1
dos2unix-850 -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Windows CP1252 to Unix Latin-1
dos2unix-1252 -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Windows CP1252 to Unix UTF-8 (Unicode)
iconv -f CP1252 -t UTF-8 in.txt | dos2unix > out.txt
Convert from Windows UTF-16 (Unicode) to Unix UTF-8 (Unicode)
iconv -f UTF-16 -t UTF-8 in.txt | dos2unix > out.txt
Convert from Unix Latin-1 to DOS default code page.
unix2dos -iso -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Unix Latin-1 to DOS CP850
unix2dos -850 -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Unix Latin-1 to Windows CP1252
unix2dos -1252 -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Unix UTF-8 (Unicode) to Windows CP1252
unix2dos < in.txt | iconv -f UTF-8 -t CP1252 > out.txt
Convert from Unix UTF-8 (Unicode) to Windows UTF-16 (Unicode)
unix2dos < in.txt | iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-16 > out.txt
See also <http://czyborra.com/charsets/codepages.html> and
<http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html>.
UNICODE
There exist different Unicode encodings. On Unix/Linux Unicode files
are mostly encoded in UTF-8 encoding. UTF-8 is ASCII compatible. UTF-8
files can have DOS, Unix or Mac line breaks. It is safe to run
dos2unix/unix2dos on UTF-8 encoded files. On Windows mostly UTF-16
encoding is used for Unicode files. Dos2unix/unix2dos should not be
run on UTF-16 files. UTF-16 files are automatically skipped, because
they are considered binary.
EXAMPLES
Read input from 'stdin' and write output to 'stdout'.
dos2unix
dos2unix -l -c mac
Convert and replace a.txt. Convert and replace b.txt.
dos2unix a.txt b.txt
dos2unix-o a.txt b.txt
Convert and replace a.txt in ascii conversion mode.
dos2unix a.txt
Convert and replace a.txt in ascii conversion mode. Convert and
replace b.txt in 7bit conversion mode.
dos2unix a.txt -c 7bit b.txt
dos2unix-c ascii a.txt -c 7bit b.txt
dos2unix-ascii a.txt -7 b.txt
Convert a.txt from Mac to Unix format.
dos2unix-c mac a.txt
mac2unix a.txt
Convert a.txt from Unix to Mac format.
unix2dos -c mac a.txt
unix2mac a.txt
Convert and replace a.txt while keeping original date stamp.
dos2unix-k a.txt
dos2unix-k -o a.txt
Convert a.txt and write to e.txt.
dos2unix-n a.txt e.txt
Convert a.txt and write to e.txt, keep date stamp of e.txt same as
a.txt.
dos2unix-k -n a.txt e.txt
Convert and replace a.txt. Convert b.txt and write to e.txt.
dos2unix a.txt -n b.txt e.txt
dos2unix-o a.txt -n b.txt e.txt
Convert c.txt and write to e.txt. Convert and replace a.txt. Convert
and replace b.txt. Convert d.txt and write to f.txt.
dos2unix-n c.txt e.txt -o a.txt b.txt -n d.txt f.txt
LOCALIZATION
LANG
The primary language is selected with the environment variable
LANG. The LANG variable consists out of several parts. The first
part is in small letters the language code. The second is optional
and is the country code in capital letters, preceded with an
underscore. There is also an optional third part: character
encoding, preceded with a dot. A few examples for POSIX standard
type shells:
export LANG=nl Dutch
export LANG=nl_NL Dutch, The Netherlands
export LANG=nl_BE Dutch, Belgium
export LANG=es_ES Spanish, Spain
export LANG=es_MX Spanish, Mexico
export LANG=en_US.iso88591 English, USA, Latin-1 encoding
export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8 English, UK, UTF-8 encoding
For a complete list of language and country codes see the gettext
manual:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#Language-Codes
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#Language-
Codes>
On Unix systems you can use to command locale(1) to get locale
specific information.
LANGUAGE
With the LANGUAGE environment variable you can specify a priority
list of languages, separated by colons. Dos2unix gives preference
to LANGUAGE over LANG. For instance, first Dutch and then German:
"LANGUAGE=nl:de". You have to first enable localization, by setting
LANG (or LC_ALL) to a value other than "C", before you can use a
language priority list through the LANGUAGE variable. See also the
gettext manual:
http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#The-LANGUAGE-variable
<http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/gettext.html#The-
LANGUAGE-variable>
If you select a language which is not available you will get the
standard English messages.
DOS2UNIX_LOCALEDIR
With the environment variable DOS2UNIX_LOCALEDIR the LOCALEDIR set
during compilation can be overruled. LOCALEDIR is used to find the
language files. The GNU default value is "/usr/local/share/locale".
Option --version will display the LOCALEDIR that is used.
Example (POSIX shell):
export DOS2UNIX_LOCALEDIR=$HOME/share/locale
RETURN VALUE
On success, zero is returned. When a system error occurs the last
system error will be returned. For other errors 1 is returned.
The return value is always zero in quiet mode, except when wrong
command-line options are used.
STANDARDS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_file
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_return
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline
AUTHORS
Benjamin Lin - <blin@socs.uts.edu.au> Bernd Johannes Wuebben (mac2unix
mode) - <wuebben@kde.org>, Christian Wurll (add extra newline) -
<wurll@ira.uka.de>, Erwin Waterlander - <waterlan@xs4all.nl>
(Maintainer)
Project page: <http://waterlan.home.xs4all.nl/dos2unix.html>
SourceForge page: <http://sourceforge.net/projects/dos2unix/>
Freecode: <http://freecode.com/projects/dos2unix>
SEE ALSOfile(1)iconv(1)dos2unix 2012-02-01 dos2unix(1)
