The format of Windows and Unix text files differs slightly. In Windows, lines end with both the line feed and carriage return ASCII characters, but Unix uses only a line feed. As a consequence, some Windows applications will not show the line breaks in Unix-format files. Likewise, Unix programs may display the carriage returns in Windows text files with Ctrl-m ( ^M ) characters at the end of each line.
There are many ways to solve this problem. This document provides instructions for using FTP, screen capture, unix2dos and dos2unix, tr, awk, Perl, and vi to do the conversion. Before you use these utilities, the files you are converting must first be on a Unix computer.
Note: In the instructions below, replace unixfile.txt with the name of the Unix file you are transferring, and replace winfile.txt with the name of the Windows file you are transferring.
FTP
When using an FTP program to move a text file between Unix and Windows, be sure the file is transferred in ASCII format. This will ensure that the document is transformed into a text format appropriate for the host. Some FTP programs, especially graphical applications like Hummingbird FTP, do this automatically. If you are using FTP from the command line, however, before you begin the file transfer, be sure to enter at the FTP prompt:
ascii
Note: You need to use a client that supports secure FTP to transfer files to and from Indiana University’s central systems. For more, see At IU, what SSH/SFTP clients are supported and where can I get them?
Screen capture
You can also convert files from Unix to Windows format when transferring them to a PC with a communications program by selecting ASCII text download. Select this option with your communications program to capture all the text subsequently displayed to your screen, and then enter at the Unix prompt:
cat unixfile.txt
Most communications programs will add carriage returns to the stream of text as they save it to your computer’s hard drive. Once the file has finished displaying, abort the text download.
Note: This method may be slow for large text files. Also, no error checking is performed on the file as it is transferred.
dos2unix and unix2dos
On systems using Solaris, the utilities dos2unix and unix2dos are available. These utilities provide a straightforward method for converting files from the Unix command line.
To use either command, simply type the command followed by the name of the file you wish to convert, and the name of a file which will contain the converted results. Thus, to convert a Windows file to a Unix file, at the Unix prompt, enter:
dos2unix winfile.txt unixfile.txt
