How do you remove ^@ with sed?

Question

I am trying to parse some logs and there is a strange ^@ symbol in there. I can remove it in vim by cutting that character and paste/searching for it, but how do I remove it in the bash command line automatically.

This doesn't work

sed 's/^@//'

that's likely not that string but the viewer showing you what is likely a null byte (value 0). see https://superuser.com/questions/287997/how-to-use-sed-to-remove-null-bytes ? — Joe, Jul 21 '20 at 21:27
This answer is talking about ^A but you could use the same exact method for ^@ which is \x00 https://stackoverflow.com/a/15421538/2193968 or https://stackoverflow.com/a/13180336/2193968 — Jerry Jeremiah, Jul 21 '20 at 21:41

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 22 '20 at 04:40

When faced with an unwanted byte in a text file represented by some other stand-in symbol, a tool like hexdump or od helps. Try this:

Make a copy of the original file.
Remove everything in the copied file, except a line or two that includes the mystery symbol. Save the file.

To see what the byte really is, do:

hexdump -v  -e '/1  "%_ad#  "' -e '/1 " _%_u\_\n"' file

From which listing find the hex code for the unwanted byte, (let's say it's 00), and try:
```
sed 's/\x00//' file
```

If that works, run the same sed line on the original file.

How do you remove ^@ with sed?

1 Answers1