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From: kathy@bakerst.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Invisible Ascii with VI
Message-ID: <931@bakerst.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 27-Sep-87 05:25:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: bakerst.931
Posted: Sun Sep 27 05:25:53 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Sep-87 21:37:39 EDT
References: <258@unx1.UUCP>
Reply-To: kathy@bakerst.UUCP (Kathy Vincent)
Organization: Chocoholics Anonymous UnLtd, Winston-Salem, NC
Lines: 39

In article <258@unx1.UUCP> andy@unx1.UUCP (Andy Clews) writes:
>Does anyone out there know if it's possible to insert/search/replace
>non-printing ascii characters?

I don't have a global answer to this question, but I know you
can do some things for sure - just remember to precede the
character with a backslash so that it's taken literally.
For example, lots of times, I'll want to remove overstrike
characters and backspaces from nroff output:

	g/.\^H/s///g

This will *look* like

	g/.^H/s///g

when you've finished typing it in, but you actually enter a
backslash and a backspace. 

I'm pretty sure I've done that with ESC characters, too - to
remove the half-linefeed codes.  Wouldn't swear by that, tho.


>Specifically: I sometimes get files from a net source that have an "extra"
>CR tacked on the end of the line, and VI shows them as ^M on the screen.
>For various reasons these are a pain. I'd like to be able to get rid of
>them with, say, a global substitute. I've tried 1,$s/^V^M$// but this
>does not seem to do what I want.

THIS, tho, I do all the time.  Don't bother to try to match the ^M.
Just match a single character at the end of every line - because,
after all, there *is* one at the end of every line:

	1,$s/.$//



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