Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!know!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jpl-devvax!lwall
From: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: How to strip edit characters
Message-ID: <9696@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>
Date: 27 Sep 90 03:56:34 GMT
References: <6665@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Reply-To: lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall)
Distribution: na
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 19

In article <6665@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu> ejmag@aplcen (Magnusson Eric 859-4680) writes:
: Occasionally I receive mail from others which contains editing
: characters such as backspace(^H).  When this text is printed to the
: screen it appears fine, but when I try to edit it, I see all the edit
: characters like sew^H^Ho (instead of "so").
: 
: Is there a "shell" way to remove the backspace characters, yet retain
: the text in its final form?

Try filtering through either of

	col -b
	perl -pe '1 while s/.\010//'

The col command may do extra transmogrifications to the text that you
don't want.  The perl command may do extra transmogrifications to your
mind that you don't want.

Larry