Converting Text Files

This tip shows you how to convert files from Windows format to UNIX format and vice versa. This can be handy if you've ever opened a file that was created in Windows and found your screen full of of ^M characters at the end of every line.

Code Listing 1: Converting files with tr and sed

// Convert from DOS/windows to unix 
% tr -d '\015'  win.txt > unix.txt 
 
// Convert from unix to DOS/windows 
% sed -e 's/$/\r/' unix.txt > win.txt

From http://www.gentoo.org/news/en/gwn/20040223-newsletter.xml