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. Binary files and non-regular files, such as soft links, are automatically skipped, unless conversion is forced.

Dos2unix was modelled after dos2unix under SunOS/Solaris and has similar conversion modes.

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.

OPTIONS

-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 all files. Also 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.

-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

    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

    For Esperanto there is a special language file in x-method format. X-method can be used on systems that don't support Latin-3 or Unicode character encoding. Make LANGUAGE equal to ``eo-x:eo''.

    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

    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://www.xs4all.nl/~waterlan/dos2unix.html

    SourceForge page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/dos2unix/

    Freshmeat: http://freshmeat.net/projects/dos2unix

    SEE ALSO

    file(1) iconv(1)