why \r\n displayed as ^M in vi?

Question

I uploaded a windows text file and I found there are a bunch of ^M displayed. I think it is new line char, but I am wondering why ^M get displayed get displayed in this case?

For this I would use the tool `dos2unix` – Brandin Aug 19 '14 at 13:33 — Brandin, Aug 19 '14 at 13:33

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 19 '14 at 13:30

6

^M is the control-character representation of \r (carriage return is ASCII 13 in decimal; M is the 13th letter of the alphabet); the \n is displayed implicitly, as usual, by a line break.

answered Aug 19 '14 at 13:30

chepner

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 19 '14 at 13:33

http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/File_format

When in text editor mode (vi file.txt) you can change the line endings using

:set ff=unix

You could be using a better text editor like Notepad++ or NetBeans which automatically use the unix line ending or at least have the ability to switch properly between them.

why \r\n displayed as ^M in vi?

2 Answers2