Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1999 00:27:03 +0000 From: Mark Ovens <marko@uk.radan.com> To: Sue Blake <sue@welearn.com.au> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: cleaning a text file Message-ID: <19990216002703.A337@localhost> In-Reply-To: <19990216103740.60271@welearn.com.au>; from Sue Blake on Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 10:37:40AM %2B1100 References: <19990215201056.19929@welearn.com.au> <Pine.BSF.3.91.990215010943.20451F-100000@dsinw.com> <19990216095232.J2207@lemis.com> <19990216103740.60271@welearn.com.au>
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On Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 10:37:40AM +1100, Sue Blake wrote: > On Tue, Feb 16, 1999 at 09:52:32AM +1030, Greg Lehey wrote: > > On Monday, 15 February 1999 at 1:10:36 -0800, rick hamell wrote: > > > > > >> Also, this file has some very long lines which would get truncated > > >> or unexpectedly wrapped when sent as email. And if there is something > > >> strange, I have to read it and guess what it should have been. > > >> > > >> Maybe someone will come up with something for this particular case. > > >> I can't believe there's not some little untility for this that's been > > >> hanging around unloved for years. > > > > > > Oy! Ok... how does Greg reformat all those emails? > > > > With Emacs. I have a collection of macros which I'm constantly > > changing to catch up with new tricks that mailers discover. > > > > To Sue's original question: it depends on what your text looks like. > > tr(1) will remove characters if you ask it to. > > If I knew which characters were there (so I could ask tr to remove > them) I would have already removed them with my text editor. > > > fmt(1) might be useful for wrapping lines. > > I don't see the long line lengths as a big problem at this stage, but > fmt might be useful later. > > The problem is that I don't know which funny characters exist in the > file, if any. I want to find out what they are, so I can search for > them and eyeball them before killing them. > > > Just knowing which characters they are would give me many solutions > immediately. There still doesn't seem to be a way to find this out :-( > First you need to identify the offending characters. Use od(1) or hexdump(1) to identify them and then work out a filter. Are they all extended ASCII (>127) chars? or are some of them control (<32) chars?. You could possibly use awk(1) as a filter, or write a simple C prog using issprint() and isspace(). HTH > Maybe there's a long way... somehow put a linefeed after each character > in the file (with sed?) and then sort it and look at the top and bottom > of the sorted file. > > -- > > Regards, > -*Sue*- > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message > -- FreeBSD - The Power To Serve http://www.freebsd.org My Webpage http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~markov _______________________________________________________________ Mark Ovens, CNC Apps Engineer, Radan Computational Ltd. Bath UK CAD/CAM solutions for Sheetmetal Working Industry mailto:marko@uk.radan.com http://www.radan.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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