Converting newline formatting from Mac to Windows

Question

I need a conversion utility/script that will convert a .sql dump file generated on Mac to one readable on Windows. This is a continuation of a problem I had here. The issue seems to be with newline formatting in text files, but I can't find a tool to make the conversion...

Answer 1

Windows uses carriage return + line feed for newline:

\r\n

Unix only uses Line feed for newline:

\n

In conclusion, simply replace every occurence of \n by \r\n.
Both unix2dos and dos2unix are not by default available on Mac OSX.
Fortunately, you can simply use Perl or sed to do the job:

sed -e 's/$/\r/' inputfile > outputfile                # UNIX to DOS  (adding CRs)
sed -e 's/\r$//' inputfile > outputfile                # DOS  to UNIX (removing CRs)
perl -pe 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\r\n/g' inputfile > outputfile  # Convert to DOS
perl -pe 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\n/g'   inputfile > outputfile  # Convert to UNIX
perl -pe 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\r/g'   inputfile > outputfile  # Convert to old Mac

Code snippet from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline#Conversion_utilities

Answer 2

This is an improved version of Anne's answer -- if you use perl, you can do the edit on the file 'in-place' rather than generating a new file:

perl -pi -e 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\r\n/g' file-to-convert  # Convert to DOS
perl -pi -e 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\n/g'   file-to-convert  # Convert to UNIX

Answer 3

You can install unix2dos with Homebrew

brew install unix2dos

Then you can do this:

unix2dos file-to-convert

You can also convert dos files to unix:

dos2unix file-to-convert

Answer 4

Just do tr delete:

tr -d "\r" <infile.txt >outfile.txt

Answer 5

You probably want unix2dos:

$ man unix2dos

NAME
       dos2unix - DOS/MAC to UNIX and vice versa text file format converter

SYNOPSIS
           dos2unix [options] [-c CONVMODE] [-o FILE ...] [-n INFILE OUTFILE ...]
           unix2dos [options] [-c CONVMODE] [-o 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 has a few conversion modes similar to dos2unix under SunOS/Solaris.

       In DOS/Windows text files line endings exist out of a combination of two characters: a Carriage Return (CR) followed by a Line Feed (LF).  In Unix text files line
       endings exists out of a single Newline character which is equal to a DOS Line Feed (LF) character.  In Mac text files, prior to Mac OS X, line endings exist out of a
       single Carriage Return character. Mac OS X is Unix based and has the same line endings as Unix.

You can either run unix2dos on your DOS/Windows machine using cygwin or on your Mac using MacPorts.

Answer 6

1. Install dos2unix with homebrew
2. Run find ./ -type f -exec dos2unix {} \; to recursively convert all line-endings within current folder

Answer 7

vim also can convert files from UNIX to DOS format. For example:

vim hello.txt <<EOF
:set fileformat=dos
:wq
EOF

Conversely, if you need to go from DOS to UNIX:

vim hello.txt <<EOF
:set fileformat=unix
:wq
EOF

Answer 8

Here's a really simple approach, worked well for me, courtesy Davy Schmeits's Weblog:

cat foo | col -b > foo2

Where foo is the file that has the Control+M characters at the end of the line, and foo2 the new file you are creating.

Answer 9

The following is a complete script based on the above answers along with sanity checking and works on Mac OS X and should work on other Linux / Unix systems as well (although this has not been tested).

#!/bin/bash

# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6373888/converting-newline-formatting-from-mac-to-windows

# =============================================================================
# =
# = FIXTEXT.SH by ECJB
# =
# = USAGE:  SCRIPT [ MODE ] FILENAME
# =
# = MODE is one of unix2dos, dos2unix, tounix, todos, tomac
# = FILENAME is modified in-place
# = If SCRIPT is one of the modes (with or without .sh extension), then MODE
# =   can be omitted - it is inferred from the script name.
# = The script does use the file command to test if it is a text file or not,
# =   but this is not a guarantee.
# =
# =============================================================================

clear
script="$0"
modes="unix2dos dos2unix todos tounix tomac"

usage() {
    echo "USAGE:  $script [ mode ] filename"
    echo
    echo "MODE is one of:"
    echo $modes
    echo "NOTE:  The tomac mode is intended for old Mac OS versions and should not be"
    echo "used without good reason."
    echo
    echo "The file is modified in-place so there is no output filename."
    echo "USE AT YOUR OWN RISK."
    echo
    echo "The script does try to check if it's a binary or text file for sanity, but"
    echo "this is not guaranteed."
    echo
    echo "Symbolic links to this script may use the above names and be recognized as"
    echo "mode operators."
    echo
    echo "Press RETURN to exit."
    read answer
    exit
}

# -- Look for the mode as the scriptname
mode="`basename "$0" .sh`"
fname="$1"

# -- If 2 arguments use as mode and filename
if [ ! -z "$2" ] ; then mode="$1"; fname="$2"; fi

# -- Check there are 1 or 2 arguments or print usage.
if [ ! -z "$3" -o -z "$1" ] ; then usage; fi

# -- Check if the mode found is valid.
validmode=no
for checkmode in $modes; do if [ $mode = $checkmode ] ; then validmode=yes; fi; done
# -- If not a valid mode, abort.
if [ $validmode = no ] ; then echo Invalid mode $mode...aborting.; echo; usage; fi

# -- If the file doesn't exist, abort.
if [ ! -e "$fname" ] ; then echo Input file $fname does not exist...aborting.; echo; usage; fi

# -- If the OS thinks it's a binary file, abort, displaying file information.
if [ -z "`file "$fname" | grep text`" ] ; then echo Input file $fname may be a binary file...aborting.; echo; file "$fname"; echo; usage; fi

# -- Do the in-place conversion.
case "$mode" in
#   unix2dos ) # sed does not behave on Mac - replace w/ "todos" and "tounix"
#       # Plus, these variants are more universal and assume less.
#       sed -e 's/$/\r/' -i '' "$fname"             # UNIX to DOS  (adding CRs)
#       ;;
#   dos2unix )
#       sed -e 's/\r$//' -i '' "$fname"             # DOS  to UNIX (removing CRs)
#           ;;
    "unix2dos" | "todos" )
        perl -pi -e 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\r\n/g' "$fname"  # Convert to DOS
        ;;
    "dos2unix" | "tounix" )
        perl -pi -e 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\n/g'   "$fname"  # Convert to UNIX
        ;;
    "tomac" )
        perl -pi -e 's/\r\n|\n|\r/\r/g'   "$fname"  # Convert to old Mac
        ;;
    * ) # -- Not strictly needed since mode is checked first.
        echo Invalid mode $mode...aborting.; echo; usage
        ;;
esac

# -- Display result.
if [ "$?" = "0" ] ; then echo "File $fname updated with mode $mode."; else echo "Conversion failed return code $?."; echo; usage; fi

Answer 10

On Yosemite OSX, use this command:

sed -e 's/^M$//' -i '' filename

where the ^M sequence is achieved by pressing Ctrl+V then Enter.

Answer 11

Expanding on the answers of Anne and JosephH, using perl in a short perl script, since i'm too lazy to type the perl-one-liner very time.
Create a file, named for example "unix2dos.pl" and put it in a directory in your path. Edit the file to contain the 2 lines:

#!/usr/bin/perl -wpi
s/\n|\r\n/\r\n/g;

Assuming that "which perl" returns "/usr/bin/perl" on your system. Make the file executable (chmod u+x unix2dos.pl).

Example:
$ echo "hello" > xxx
$ od -c xxx (checking that the file ends with a nl)
0000000 h e l l o \n

$ unix2dos.pl xxx
$ od -c xxx (checking that it ends now in cr lf)
0000000 h e l l o \r \n

Answer 12

In Xcode 9 in the left panel open/choose your file in project navigator. If file is not there, drug-and-drop it into the project navigator.

On right panel find Text Settings and change Line Endings to Windows (CRLF) .

XCode screendump