NAME¶
dos2unix - DOS/Mac to Unix and vice versa text file format converter
SYNOPSIS¶
dos2unix [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.
Besides line breaks Dos2unix can also convert the encoding of files. A few DOS
code pages can be converted to Unix Latin-1. And Windows Unicode (UTF-16)
files can be converted to Unix Unicode (UTF-8) files.
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.
- -m, --add-bom
- Write an UTF-8 Byte Order Mark in the output file. Never use this option
when the output encoding is other than UTF-8. See also section
UNICODE.
- -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.
The person who starts the conversion in new file (paired) mode will be the
owner of the converted file. The read/write permissions of the new file
will be the permissions of the original file minus the umask(1) of
the person who runs the conversion.
- -o, --oldfile FILE ...
- Old file mode. Convert file FILE and overwrite output to it. The program
defaults to run in this mode. Wildcard names may be used.
In old file (in-place) mode the converted file gets the same owner, group,
and read/write permissions as the original file. Also when the file is
converted by another user who has write permissions on the file (e.g. user
root). The conversion will be aborted when it is not possible to preserve
the original values. Change of owner could mean that the original owner is
not able to read the file any more. Change of group could be a security
risk, the file could be made readable for persons for whom it is not
intended. Preservation of owner, group, and read/write permissions is only
supported on Unix.
- -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).
- -ul, --assume-utf16le
- Assume that the input file format is UTF-16LE.
When there is a Byte Order Mark in the input file the BOM has priority over
this option.
When you made a wrong assumption (the input file was not in UTF-16LE format)
and the conversion succeeded, you will get an UTF-8 output file with wrong
text. You can undo the wrong conversion with iconv(1) by converting
the UTF-8 output file back to UTF-16LE. This will bring back the original
file.
The assumption of UTF-16LE works as a conversion mode. By switching
to the default ascii mode the UTF-16LE assumption is turned
off.
- -ub, --assume-utf16be
- Assume that the input file format is UTF-16BE.
This option works the same as option "-ul".
- -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.
Never use ISO converion on Unicode text files. It will corrupt UTF-8 encoded
files.
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 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
See also <http://czyborra.com/charsets/codepages.html> and
<http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html>.
UNICODE¶
Encodings¶
There exist different Unicode encodings. On Unix and Linux Unicode files are
typically encoded in UTF-8 encoding. On Windows Unicode text files can be
encoded in UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-16 big endian, but are mostly encoded in
UTF-16 format.
Conversion¶
Unicode text files can have DOS, Unix or Mac line breaks, like regular text
files.
All versions of dos2unix and unix2dos can convert UTF-8 encoded files, because
UTF-8 was designed for backward compatiblity with ASCII.
Dos2unix and unix2dos with Unicode UTF-16 support, can read little and big
endian UTF-16 encoded text files. To see if dos2unix was built with UTF-16
support type "dos2unix -V".
The Windows versions of dos2unix and unix2dos convert UTF-16 encoded files
always to UTF-8 encoded files. Unix versions of dos2unix/unix2dos convert
UTF-16 encoded files to the locale character encoding when it is set to UTF-8.
Use the
locale(1) command to find out what the locale character
encoding is.
Because UTF-8 formatted text files are well supported on both Windows and Unix,
dos2unix and unix2dos have no option to write UTF-16 files. All UTF-16
characters can be encoded in UTF-8. Conversion from UTF-16 to UTF-8 is without
loss. UTF-16 files will be skipped on Unix when the locale character encoding
is not UTF-8, to prevent accidental loss of text. When an UTF-16 to UTF-8
conversion error occurs, for instance when the UTF-16 input file contains an
error, the file will be skipped.
ISO and 7-bit mode conversion do not work on UTF-16 files.
Byte Order Mark¶
On Windows Unicode text files typically have a Byte Order Mark (BOM), because
many Windows programs (including Notepad) add BOMs by default. See also
<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark>.
On Unix Unicode files typically don't have a BOM. It is assumed that text files
are encoded in the locale character encoding.
Dos2unix can only detect if a file is in UTF-16 format if the file has a BOM.
When an UTF-16 file doesn't have a BOM, dos2unix will see the file as a binary
file.
Use option "-ul" or "-ub" to convert an UTF-16 file without
BOM.
Dos2unix never writes a BOM in the output file, unless you use option
"-m".
Unix2dos writes a BOM in the output file when the input file has a BOM, or when
option "-m" is used.
Unicode examples¶
Convert from Windows UTF-16 (with BOM) to Unix UTF-8
dos2unix -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Windows UTF-16LE (without BOM) to Unix UTF-8
dos2unix -ul -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Unix UTF-8 to Windows UTF-8 with BOM
unix2dos -m -n in.txt out.txt
Convert from Unix UTF-8 to Windows UTF-16
unix2dos < in.txt | iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-16 > out.txt
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
RECURSIVE CONVERSION¶
Use dos2unix in combination with the
find(1) and
xargs(1) commands
to recursively convert text files in a directory tree structure. For instance
to convert all .txt files in the directory tree under the current directory
type:
find . -name *.txt |xargs dos2unix
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>
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>
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>
<
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode>
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 ALSO¶
file(1) find(1) iconv(1) locale(1)
xargs(1)