Copy and pasted file names from finder on mac and vim showing ^M after each filename, how to fix?

Question

I copy and pasted files from finder, into a text file to get the names of the files in a certain directory to a text file. When I open the file the files from each directory are all the same line... For example: I copy and pasted from the "Hats Directory": Line1 is:

hats1.jpg^Mhats2.jpg^Mhats3.jpg^M...

In that same text file I copy and pasted files from the "Shoes" directory Line 2 is:

shoes1.jpg^Mshoes2.jpg^Mshoes3.jpg^M...

I have tried

:%s/^M//
dos2unix
CTRL-V CTRL-M

Neither of them work, am I going about this process the wrong one? Is there a more efficient way to do what I'm trying to do?

can you please execute `:.!xxd` on the first line so we can see the hex code of that character`^M` ? — Meninx - メネンックス, Jul 01 '16 at 16:47
Possible duplicate of [Vim: Mac vs. Linux ^M Problem](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4633564/vim-mac-vs-linux-m-problem) — SibiCoder, Jul 01 '16 at 17:43

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 01 '16 at 17:17

3

A more simple way is using bash truncate tr command.

Just do, tr -d '\r' < inputFile > outputFile to remove all the carriage return characters.

answered Jul 01 '16 at 17:17

Inian

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That works to delete the ^M, I can use another command to get each file name on its own line. Thank you. – Pulse Jul 01 '16 at 17:33
You don't have to use another command you can use this command : `:%s/^M/\r/g` – Meninx - メネンックス Jul 01 '16 at 17:55

Meninx - メネンックス · Answer 2 · 2016-07-01T16:53:41.893

2

Try this command:

:%s/^M//g

The ^M that you are looking for is ctrl+V Enter

edited Jul 01 '16 at 16:53

answered Jul 01 '16 at 16:37

Meninx - メネンックス

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When I use it I get an error saying "E486: Pattern not found :\^M" – Pulse Jul 01 '16 at 16:38

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 04 '16 at 07:09

1

These are old style mac line breaks (a single \r). Try mac2unix

answered Jul 04 '16 at 07:09

Erwin Waterlander

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 01 '16 at 20:08

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You could get that list without involving the Finder and without fishy formatting:

:r!ls path/to/dir

See :help :r and :help :!.

answered Jul 01 '16 at 20:08

romainl

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Copy and pasted file names from finder on mac and vim showing ^M after each filename, how to fix?

4 Answers4