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Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!psuvax1!vu-vlsi!devon!paul
From: paul@devon.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Invisible Ascii with VI
Message-ID: <469@devon.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Sep-87 00:03:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: devon.469
Posted: Mon Sep 28 00:03:36 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 29-Sep-87 01:29:45 EDT
References: <258@unx1.UUCP>
Reply-To: paul@devon.UUCP (Paul Sutcliffe Jr.)
Distribution: world
Organization: Devon Computer Services, Allentown, PA
Lines: 27
Keywords: vi
Summary: your command was wrong

In article <258@unx1.UUCP> andy@unx1.UUCP (Andy Clews) writes:
> 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.
> I'd appreciate email replies if any.

I thought this reply might be of general interest, so I'm posting it.

Your "1,$s/^V^M$//" didn't work because the search pattern didn't match
anything in your text file.  You asked vi to find all lines where the
character just before the end of line ($) was a carriage-return.  This
pattern will not match because the lines in your text were terminated
by a CR/LF pair, so there was a line-feed between the "^M" and the "$".

A better way to do this would have been "1,$s/^V^M//".  This would replace
all occurrances of ^M with nothing.  You don't need an end-of-line indicator
as there are (should be) no other ^M's in the text.

- paul

-- 
Paul Sutcliffe, Jr.

UUCP (smart):  paul@devon.UUCP
UUCP (dumb):   ...{rutgers,ihnp4,cbosgd}!bpa!vu-vlsi!devon!paul