path: root/man/man1/dos2unix.txt

NAME
    dos2unix - DOS/Mac to Unix and vice versa text file format converter

SYNOPSIS
        dos2unix [options] [FILE ...] [-n INFILE OUTFILE ...]
        unix2dos [options] [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.

    In DOS/Windows text files a line break, also known as newline, is a
    combination of two characters: a Carriage Return (CR) followed by a Line
    Feed (LF). In Unix text files a line break is a single character: the
    Line Feed (LF). In Mac text files, prior to Mac OS X, a line break was
    single Carriage Return (CR) character. Nowadays Mac OS uses Unix style
    (LF) line breaks.

    Besides line breaks Dos2unix can also convert the encoding of files. A
    few DOS code pages can be converted to Unix Latin-1. And Windows Unicode
    (UTF-16) files can be converted to Unix Unicode (UTF-8) files.

    Binary files are automatically skipped, unless conversion is forced.

    Non-regular files, such as directories and FIFOs, are automatically
    skipped.

    Symbolic links and their targets are by default kept untouched. Symbolic
    links can optionally be replaced, or the output can be written to the
    symbolic link target. Writing to a symbolic link target is not supported
    on Windows.

    Dos2unix was modelled after dos2unix under SunOS/Solaris. There is one
    important difference with the original SunOS/Solaris version. This
    version does by default in-place conversion (old file mode), while the
    original SunOS/Solaris version only supports paired conversion (new file
    mode). See also options "-o" and "-n".

OPTIONS
    --  Treat all following options as file names. Use this option if you
        want to convert files whose names start with a dash. For instance to
        convert a file named "-foo", you can use this command:

            dos2unix -- -foo

        Or in new file mode:

            dos2unix -n -- -foo out.txt

    -ascii
        Convert only line breaks. This is the default conversion mode.

    -iso
        Conversion between DOS and ISO-8859-1 character set. See also
        section CONVERSION MODES.

    -1252
        Use Windows code page 1252 (Western European).

    -437
        Use DOS code page 437 (US). This is the default code page used for
        ISO conversion.

    -850
        Use DOS code page 850 (Western European).

    -860
        Use DOS code page 860 (Portuguese).

    -863
        Use DOS code page 863 (French Canadian).

    -865
        Use DOS code page 865 (Nordic).

    -7  Convert 8 bit characters to 7 bit space.

    -b, --keep-bom
        Keep Byte Order Mark (BOM). When the input file has a BOM, write a
        BOM in the output file. This is the default behavior when converting
        to DOS line breaks. See also option "-r".

    -c, --convmode CONVMODE
        Set conversion mode. Where CONVMODE is one of: *ascii*, *7bit*,
        *iso*, *mac* with ascii being the default.

    -D, --display-enc ENCODING
        Set encoding of displayed text. Where ENCODING is one of: *ansi*,
        *unicode*, *utf8* with ansi being the default.

        This option is only available in dos2unix for Windows with Unicode
        file name support. This option has no effect on the actual file
        names read and written, only on how they are displayed.

        There are several methods for displaying text in a Windows console
        based on the encoding of the text. They all have their own
        advantages and disadvantages.

        ansi
            Dos2unix's default method is to use ANSI encoded text. The
            advantage is that it is backwards compatible. It works with
            raster and TrueType fonts. In some regions you may need to
            change the active DOS OEM code page to the Windows system ANSI
            code page using the "chcp" command, because dos2unix uses the
            Windows system code page.

            The disadvantage of ansi is that international file names with
            characters not inside the system default code page are not
            displayed properly. You will see a question mark, or a wrong
            symbol instead. When you don't work with foreign file names this
            method is OK.

        unicode
            The advantage of unicode (the Windows name for UTF-16) encoding
            is that text is usually properly displayed. There is no need to
            change the active code page. You may need to set the console's
            font to a TrueType font to have international characters
            displayed properly. When a character is not included in the
            TrueType font you usually see a small square, sometimes with a
            question mark in it.

            When you use the ConEmu console all text is displayed properly,
            because ConEmu automatically selects a good font.

            The disadvantage of unicode is that it is not compatible with
            ASCII. The output is not easy to handle when you redirect it to
            another program or a file. Redirection to a file does not give a
            correct UTF-16 file.

        utf8
            The advantage of utf8 is that it is compatible with ASCII and
            when you redirect it to a file you get a proper UTF-8 file. You
            need to set the console's font to a TrueType font. With a
            TrueType font the text is displayed similar as with the
            "unicode" encoding.

            The disadvantage is that when you use the default raster font
            all non-ASCII characters are displayed wrong. Not only unicode
            file names, but also translated messages become unreadable. On
            Windows configured for an East-Asian region you may see a lot of
            flickering of the console when the messages are displayed.

            In a ConEmu console the utf8 encoding method works well.

        The default encoding can be changed with environment variable
        DOS2UNIX_DISPLAY_ENC by setting it to "unicode" or "utf8".

    -f, --force
        Force conversion of binary files.

    -gb, --gb18030
        On Windows UTF-16 files are by default converted to UTF-8,
        regardless of the locale setting. Use this option to convert UTF-16
        files to GB18030. This option is only available on Windows. See also
        section GB18030.

    -h, --help
        Display help and exit.

    -i[FLAGS], --info[=FLAGS] FILE ...
        Display file information. No conversion is done.

        The following information is printed, in this order: number of DOS
        line breaks, number of Unix line breaks, number of Mac line breaks,
        byte order mark, text or binary, file name.

        Example output:

             6       0       0  no_bom    text    dos.txt
             0       6       0  no_bom    text    unix.txt
             0       0       6  no_bom    text    mac.txt
             6       6       6  no_bom    text    mixed.txt
            50       0       0  UTF-16LE  text    utf16le.txt
             0      50       0  no_bom    text    utf8unix.txt
            50       0       0  UTF-8     text    utf8dos.txt
             2     418     219  no_bom    binary  dos2unix.exe

        Optionally extra flags can be set to change the output. One or more
        flags can be added.

        d   Print number of DOS line breaks.

        u   Print number of Unix line breaks.

        m   Print number of Mac line breaks.

        b   Print the byte order mark.

        t   Print if file is text or binary.

        c   Print only the files that would be converted.

            With the "c" flag dos2unix will print only the files that
            contain DOS line breaks, unix2dos will print only file names
            that have Unix line breaks.

        Examples:

        Show information for all *.txt files:

            dos2unix -i *.txt

        Show only the number of DOS line breaks and Unix line breaks:

            dos2unix -idu *.txt

        Show only the byte order mark:

            dos2unix --info=b *.txt

        List the files that have DOS line breaks:

            dos2unix -ic *.txt

        List the files that have Unix line breaks:

            unix2dos -ic *.txt

        Convert only files that have DOS line breaks and leave the other
        files untouched:

            dos2unix -ic *.txt | xargs dos2unix

        Find text files that have DOS line breaks:

            find -name '*.txt' | xargs dos2unix -ic

    -k, --keepdate
        Keep the date stamp of output file same as input file.

    -L, --license
        Display program's license.

    -l, --newline
        Add additional newline.

        dos2unix: Only DOS line breaks are changed to two Unix line breaks.
        In Mac mode only Mac line breaks are changed to two Unix line
        breaks.

        unix2dos: Only Unix line breaks are changed to two DOS line breaks.
        In Mac mode Unix line breaks are changed to two Mac line breaks.

    -m, --add-bom
        Write a Byte Order Mark (BOM) in the output file. By default an
        UTF-8 BOM is written.

        When the input file is UTF-16, and the option "-u" is used, an
        UTF-16 BOM will be written.

        Never use this option when the output encoding is other than UTF-8,
        UTF-16, or GB18030. See also section UNICODE.

    -n, --newfile INFILE OUTFILE ...
        New file mode. Convert file INFILE and write output to file OUTFILE.
        File names must be given in pairs and wildcard names should *not* be
        used or you *will* lose your files.

        The person who starts the conversion in new file (paired) mode will
        be the owner of the converted file. The read/write permissions of
        the new file will be the permissions of the original file minus the
        umask(1) of the person who runs the conversion.

    -o, --oldfile FILE ...
        Old file mode. Convert file FILE and overwrite output to it. The
        program defaults to run in this mode. Wildcard names may be used.

        In old file (in-place) mode the converted file gets the same owner,
        group, and read/write permissions as the original file. Also when
        the file is converted by another user who has write permissions on
        the file (e.g. user root). The conversion will be aborted when it is
        not possible to preserve the original values. Change of owner could
        mean that the original owner is not able to read the file any more.
        Change of group could be a security risk, the file could be made
        readable for persons for whom it is not intended. Preservation of
        owner, group, and read/write permissions is only supported on Unix.

    -q, --quiet
        Quiet mode. Suppress all warnings and messages. The return value is
        zero. Except when wrong command-line options are used.

    -r, --remove-bom
        Remove Byte Order Mark (BOM). Do not write a BOM in the output file.
        This is the default behavior when converting to Unix line breaks.
        See also option "-b".

    -s, --safe
        Skip binary files (default).

    -u, --keep-utf16
        Keep the original UTF-16 encoding of the input file. The output file
        will be written in the same UTF-16 encoding, little or big endian,
        as the input file. This prevents transformation to UTF-8. An UTF-16
        BOM will be written accordingly. This option can be disabled with
        the "-ascii" option.

    -ul, --assume-utf16le
        Assume that the input file format is UTF-16LE.

        When there is a Byte Order Mark in the input file the BOM has
        priority over this option.

        When you made a wrong assumption (the input file was not in UTF-16LE
        format) and the conversion succeeded, you will get an UTF-8 output
        file with wrong text. You can undo the wrong conversion with
        iconv(1) by converting the UTF-8 output file back to UTF-16LE. This
        will bring back the original file.

        The assumption of UTF-16LE works as a *conversion mode*. By
        switching to the default *ascii* mode the UTF-16LE assumption is
        turned off.

    -ub, --assume-utf16be
        Assume that the input file format is UTF-16BE.

        This option works the same as option "-ul".

    -v, --verbose
        Display verbose messages. Extra information is displayed about Byte
        Order Marks and the amount of converted line breaks.

    -F, --follow-symlink
        Follow symbolic links and convert the targets.

    -R, --replace-symlink
        Replace symbolic links with converted files (original target files
        remain unchanged).

    -S, --skip-symlink
        Keep symbolic links and targets unchanged (default).

    -V, --version
        Display version information and exit.

MAC MODE
    In normal mode line breaks are converted from DOS to Unix and vice
    versa. Mac line breaks are not converted.

    In Mac mode line breaks are converted from Mac to Unix and vice versa.
    DOS line breaks are not changed.

    To run in Mac mode use the command-line option "-c mac" or use the
    commands "mac2unix" or "unix2mac".

CONVERSION MODES
    ascii
        In mode "ascii" only line breaks are converted. This is the default
        conversion mode.

        Although the name of this mode is ASCII, which is a 7 bit standard,
        the actual mode is 8 bit. Use always this mode when converting
        Unicode UTF-8 files.

    7bit
        In this mode all 8 bit non-ASCII characters (with values from 128 to
        255) are converted to a 7 bit space.

    iso Characters are converted between a DOS character set (code page) and
        ISO character set ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) on Unix. DOS characters
        without ISO-8859-1 equivalent, for which conversion is not possible,
        are converted to a dot. The same counts for ISO-8859-1 characters
        without DOS counterpart.

        When only option "-iso" is used dos2unix will try to determine the
        active code page. When this is not possible dos2unix will use
        default code page CP437, which is mainly used in the USA. To force a
        specific code page use options -437 (US), -850 (Western European),
        -860 (Portuguese), -863 (French Canadian), or -865 (Nordic). Windows
        code page CP1252 (Western European) is also supported with option
        -1252. For other code pages use dos2unix in combination with
        iconv(1). Iconv can convert between a long list of character
        encodings.

        Never use ISO conversion on Unicode text files. It will corrupt
        UTF-8 encoded files.

        Some examples:

        Convert from DOS default code page to Unix Latin-1:

            dos2unix -iso -n in.txt out.txt

        Convert from DOS CP850 to Unix Latin-1:

            dos2unix -850 -n in.txt out.txt

        Convert from Windows CP1252 to Unix Latin-1:

            dos2unix -1252 -n in.txt out.txt

        Convert from Windows CP1252 to Unix UTF-8 (Unicode):

            iconv -f CP1252 -t UTF-8 in.txt | dos2unix > out.txt

        Convert from Unix Latin-1 to DOS default code page:

            unix2dos -iso -n in.txt out.txt

        Convert from Unix Latin-1 to DOS CP850:

            unix2dos -850 -n in.txt out.txt

        Convert from Unix Latin-1 to Windows CP1252:

            unix2dos -1252 -n in.txt out.txt

        Convert from Unix UTF-8 (Unicode) to Windows CP1252:

            unix2dos < in.txt | iconv -f UTF-8 -t CP1252 > out.txt

        See also <http://czyborra.com/charsets/codepages.html> and
        <http://czyborra.com/charsets/iso8859.html>.

UNICODE
  Encodings
    There exist different Unicode encodings. On Unix and Linux Unicode files
    are typically encoded in UTF-8 encoding. On Windows Unicode text files
    can be encoded in UTF-8, UTF-16, or UTF-16 big endian, but are mostly
    encoded in UTF-16 format.

  Conversion
    Unicode text files can have DOS, Unix or Mac line breaks, like regular
    text files.

    All versions of dos2unix and unix2dos can convert UTF-8 encoded files,
    because UTF-8 was designed for backward compatibility with ASCII.

    Dos2unix and unix2dos with Unicode UTF-16 support, can read little and
    big endian UTF-16 encoded text files. To see if dos2unix was built with
    UTF-16 support type "dos2unix -V".

    On Unix/Linux UTF-16 encoded files are converted to the locale character
    encoding. Use the locale(1) command to find out what the locale
    character encoding is. When conversion is not possible a conversion
    error will occur and the file will be skipped.

    On Windows UTF-16 files are by default converted to UTF-8. UTF-8
    formatted text files are well supported on both Windows and Unix/Linux.

    UTF-16 and UTF-8 encoding are fully compatible, there will no text be
    lost in the conversion. When an UTF-16 to UTF-8 conversion error occurs,
    for instance when the UTF-16 input file contains an error, the file will
    be skipped.

    When option "-u" is used, the output file will be written in the same
    UTF-16 encoding as the input file. Option "-u" prevents conversion to
    UTF-8.

    Dos2unix and unix2dos have no option to convert UTF-8 files to UTF-16.

    ISO and 7-bit mode conversion do not work on UTF-16 files.

  Byte Order Mark
    On Windows Unicode text files typically have a Byte Order Mark (BOM),
    because many Windows programs (including Notepad) add BOMs by default.
    See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte_order_mark>.

    On Unix Unicode files typically don't have a BOM. It is assumed that
    text files are encoded in the locale character encoding.

    Dos2unix can only detect if a file is in UTF-16 format if the file has a
    BOM. When an UTF-16 file doesn't have a BOM, dos2unix will see the file
    as a binary file.

    Use option "-ul" or "-ub" to convert an UTF-16 file without BOM.

    Dos2unix writes by default no BOM in the output file. With option "-b"
    Dos2unix writes a BOM when the input file has a BOM.

    Unix2dos writes by default a BOM in the output file when the input file
    has a BOM. Use option "-r" to remove the BOM.

    Dos2unix and unix2dos write always a BOM when option "-m" is used.

  Unicode file names on Windows
    Dos2unix has optional support for reading and writing Unicode file names
    in the Windows Command Prompt. That means that dos2unix can open files
    that have characters in the name that are not part of the default system
    ANSI code page. To see if dos2unix for Windows was built with Unicode
    file name support type "dos2unix -V".

    There are some issues with displaying Unicode file names in a Windows
    console. See option "-D", "--display-enc". The file names may be
    displayed wrongly in the console, but the files will be written with the
    correct name.

  Unicode examples
    Convert from Windows UTF-16 (with BOM) to Unix UTF-8:

        dos2unix -n in.txt out.txt

    Convert from Windows UTF-16LE (without BOM) to Unix UTF-8:

        dos2unix -ul -n in.txt out.txt

    Convert from Unix UTF-8 to Windows UTF-8 with BOM:

        unix2dos -m -n in.txt out.txt

    Convert from Unix UTF-8 to Windows UTF-16:

        unix2dos < in.txt | iconv -f UTF-8 -t UTF-16 > out.txt

GB18030
    GB18030 is a Chinese government standard. A mandatory subset of the
    GB18030 standard is officially required for all software products sold
    in China. See also <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GB_18030>.

    GB18030 is fully compatible with Unicode, and can be considered an
    unicode transformation format. Like UTF-8, GB18030 is compatible with
    ASCII. GB18030 is also compatible with Windows code page 936, also known
    as GBK.

    On Unix/Linux UTF-16 files are converted to GB18030 when the locale
    encoding is set to GB18030. Note that this will only work if the locale
    is supported by the system. Use command "locale -a" to get the list of
    supported locales.

    On Windows you need to use option "-gb" to convert UTF-16 files to
    GB18030.

    GB18030 encoded files can have a Byte Order Mark, like Unicode files.

EXAMPLES
    Read input from 'stdin' and write output to 'stdout':

        dos2unix
        dos2unix -l -c mac

    Convert and replace a.txt. Convert and replace b.txt:

        dos2unix a.txt b.txt
        dos2unix -o a.txt b.txt

    Convert and replace a.txt in ascii conversion mode:

        dos2unix a.txt

    Convert and replace a.txt in ascii conversion mode, convert and replace
    b.txt in 7bit conversion mode:

        dos2unix a.txt -c 7bit b.txt
        dos2unix -c ascii a.txt -c 7bit b.txt
        dos2unix -ascii a.txt -7 b.txt

    Convert a.txt from Mac to Unix format:

        dos2unix -c mac a.txt
        mac2unix a.txt

    Convert a.txt from Unix to Mac format:

        unix2dos -c mac a.txt
        unix2mac a.txt

    Convert and replace a.txt while keeping original date stamp:

        dos2unix -k a.txt
        dos2unix -k -o a.txt

    Convert a.txt and write to e.txt:

        dos2unix -n a.txt e.txt

    Convert a.txt and write to e.txt, keep date stamp of e.txt same as
    a.txt:

        dos2unix -k -n a.txt e.txt

    Convert and replace a.txt, convert b.txt and write to e.txt:

        dos2unix a.txt -n b.txt e.txt
        dos2unix -o a.txt -n b.txt e.txt

    Convert c.txt and write to e.txt, convert and replace a.txt, convert and
    replace b.txt, convert d.txt and write to f.txt:

        dos2unix -n c.txt e.txt -o a.txt b.txt -n d.txt f.txt

RECURSIVE CONVERSION
    Use dos2unix in combination with the find(1) and xargs(1) commands to
    recursively convert text files in a directory tree structure. For
    instance to convert all .txt files in the directory tree under the
    current directory type:

        find . -name '*.txt' |xargs dos2unix

    In a Windows Command Prompt the following command can be used:

        for /R %G in (*.txt) do dos2unix "%G"

LOCALIZATION
    LANG
        The primary language is selected with the environment variable LANG.
        The LANG variable consists out of several parts. The first part is
        in small letters the language code. The second is optional and is
        the country code in capital letters, preceded with an underscore.
        There is also an optional third part: character encoding, preceded
        with a dot. A few examples for POSIX standard type shells:

            export LANG=nl               Dutch
            export LANG=nl_NL            Dutch, The Netherlands
            export LANG=nl_BE            Dutch, Belgium
            export LANG=es_ES            Spanish, Spain
            export LANG=es_MX            Spanish, Mexico
            export LANG=en_US.iso88591   English, USA, Latin-1 encoding
            export LANG=en_GB.UTF-8      English, UK, UTF-8 encoding

        For a complete list of language and country codes see the gettext
        manual:
        <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/Usual-Language
        -Codes.html>

        On Unix systems you can use the command locale(1) to get locale
        specific information.

    LANGUAGE
        With the LANGUAGE environment variable you can specify a priority
        list of languages, separated by colons. Dos2unix gives preference to
        LANGUAGE over LANG. For instance, first Dutch and then German:
        "LANGUAGE=nl:de". You have to first enable localization, by setting
        LANG (or LC_ALL) to a value other than "C", before you can use a
        language priority list through the LANGUAGE variable. See also the
        gettext manual:
        <http://www.gnu.org/software/gettext/manual/html_node/The-LANGUAGE-v
        ariable.html>

        If you select a language which is not available you will get the
        standard English messages.

    DOS2UNIX_LOCALEDIR
        With the environment variable DOS2UNIX_LOCALEDIR the LOCALEDIR set
        during compilation can be overruled. LOCALEDIR is used to find the
        language files. The GNU default value is "/usr/local/share/locale".
        Option --version will display the LOCALEDIR that is used.

        Example (POSIX shell):

            export DOS2UNIX_LOCALEDIR=$HOME/share/locale

RETURN VALUE
    On success, zero is returned. When a system error occurs the last system
    error will be returned. For other errors 1 is returned.

    The return value is always zero in quiet mode, except when wrong
    command-line options are used.

STANDARDS
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text_file>

    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carriage_return>

    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline>

    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode>

AUTHORS
    Benjamin Lin - <blin@socs.uts.edu.au>, Bernd Johannes Wuebben (mac2unix
    mode) - <wuebben@kde.org>, Christian Wurll (add extra newline) -
    <wurll@ira.uka.de>, Erwin Waterlander - <waterlan@xs4all.nl>
    (maintainer)

    Project page: <http://waterlan.home.xs4all.nl/dos2unix.html>

    SourceForge page: <http://sourceforge.net/projects/dos2unix/>

SEE ALSO
    file(1) find(1) iconv(1) locale(1) xargs(1)