This tip shows you how to convert files from Windows format to UNIX format and vice versa. This can be handy if you’ve ever opened a file that was created in Windows and found your screen full of of ^M characters at the end of every line.

Code Listing 1: Converting files with tr and sed

// Convert from DOS/windows to unix
% tr -d '\015' win.txt > unix.txt

// Convert from unix to DOS/windows
% sed -e 's/$/\r/' unix.txt > win.txt