SuSE Support Database

Title: CR/LF -- Line separation under DOS and Unix

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CR/LF -- Line separation under DOS and Unix

Symptom:

• A text file created under Unix doesn't contain any word wrapping

• A text file created under DOS has a ^M at the end of each line under Linux

Cause:

• Under Unix every line is ended by a linefeed character (LF).

• Under DOS every line is ended by a Carriage-Return (CR) and a Linefeed (LF).

The ^M simply represents the additional CR in front of the Linefeed.

There is probably noone who knows, why this is done this way by DOS.

Solution:

• A Unix file can be converted to a DOS file by the command unix2dos file, e.g.

  cd /tmp
  cp /etc/printcap .
  unix2dos printcap
  

• A DOS file can be converted to a Unix file by the command dos2unix file, e.g.

  cd /tmp
  cp /dos/autoexec.bat .
  dos2unix autoexec.bat
  

So where are these programs ?

dos2unix and unix2dos are no real programs but aliases for the program recode (package recode, series ap).

After a standard installation this program is available and you have to enter the following lines into /etc/profile :

alias unix2dos='recode lat1:ibmpc'
alias dos2unix='recode ibmpc:lat1'

Keywords: LINE, SEPARATOR, DOS, CR/LF, UNIX2DOS, DOS2UNIX

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