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linuxbashcommand-linenewlineline-endings

How to find out line-endings in a text file?

I'm trying to use something in bash to show me the line endings in a file printed rather than interpreted. The file is a dump from SSIS/SQL Server being read in by a Linux machine for processing.

  • Are there any switches within vi, less, more, etc?

  • In addition to seeing the line-endings, I need to know what type of line end it is (CRLF or LF). How do I find that out?

Solution

  • You can use the file utility to give you an indication of the type of line endings.

    Unix:

    $ file testfile1.txt
testfile.txt: ASCII text

    "DOS":

    $ file testfile2.txt
testfile2.txt: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators

    To convert from "DOS" to Unix:

    $ dos2unix testfile2.txt

    To convert from Unix to "DOS":

    $ unix2dos testfile1.txt

    Converting an already converted file has no effect so it's safe to run blindly (i.e. without testing the format first) although the usual disclaimers apply, as always.