I have a stranger thing:

I edit a file with an editor in Windows and it looks fine. But after I transport/copy this file to LINUX and as I open this file with vi, I find some unexpected characters.

For examle this file has the line in Windows
But under LINUX vi it looks as follow:
One can see the charater ^M now (this should the carrage return?). This can even not be seen with less or cat.

I am not sure if this is the problem of LINUX or a mistake as I edit this file under Windows? If this is the problem of LINUX, why the other lines without such ending?

I wonder how can I find out this under Windows before I transfer/copy this file to LINUX?

I've tried using the HEX-Editor but this doesn't help.

P.S.: After I run dos2unix over this file, the unwanted charaters are gone.

^M is the carriage return character used by windows (ascii 13). That's why it doesn't show when using windows.

Use the dos2unix command on the file to remove them (from linux)

I'm not a windows user, but it must be possible to save the file in a plain text format without the ^M

the is a DOS EOL ( End Of Line )

many many ways to fix it

• not use windows to write such files
• use notepad++ in windows, saving with Unix EOL
• use the dos2unix utility to convert the files to unix format
• many others...

edit for convenience :
http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

1 members found this post helpful.

This is normal for a text file transferred from Windows to Linux. Windows text files, and MSDOS as well, terminate each line with a "CARRIAGE-RETURN" and a "LINE-FEED" (two characters). Linux (and Unix and OS-X) terminate each line with only a LINE-FEED (one character). The original Mac's (not OS-X) terminate each line with a CARRIAGE-RETURN (one character).

Below is a webpage that explains what you're seeing. Actually, the webpage is trying to sell you their overpriced Windows text editor, but ignore that part and just read their description of end-of-line conventions and FTP's "ascii" and "binary" modes.

http://www.editpadpro.com/tricklinebreak.html