Note: This document is primarily concerned witholder systems and text files, and does not factor in Unicode or wordprocessed files.

The above command will convert a UNIX created text file called “unix.txt” to a Windows compatible text file called “windows.txt”. The awk command. The awk command also lets you convert a file from UNIX to Windows and vice versa. To convert a Windows file to a UNIX file, enter the following command. But since they all come with the EXE file extension, your Mac is incapable of running them. Well, there are workarounds to this problem and you'll learn about them today. It's possible to safely open and run EXE files on your Mac using mediums like Boot Camp, Remote Desktop, CrossOver, Virtual Machine, and WINE, to mention the most prominent ones.

Traditionally, Unix and Mac OS differ in theformat in which they store text files. Mac OS places a carriagereturn character at the end of each line of a text file, but Unix usesa line feed character. Some Unix applications won't recognize thecarriage returns added by Mac OS, and will display a file as a singleline, interspersed with Ctrl-m characters. This appearson the screen as ^M. Similarly, some Mac OS applicationsneed to see carriage return characters at the ends of lines, and maytreat Unix-format files as one long line.

In Mac OS X, the situation is more complicated. BecauseMac OS X is a meld of Unix and the older Mac OS, in some cases textfiles have carriage returns and in others they have line feeds. Forthe most part, classic applications still require text files to havecarriage returns, while the command-line Unix utilities require linefeeds. Mac OS X-native applications are usually capable ofinterpreting both.

There are many ways to resolve the differences in format. In thisdocument you will find instructions on how to use the Unix commandline utilities tr, awk, and Perl todo the conversion. From Mac OS X, each can be accessed from theTerminal application.

tr

The Unix program tr is used to translatebetween two sets of characters. Characters specified in one set areconverted to the matching character in the second set. Thus, toconvert the Ctrl-m of a Mac OS text file to the line feed(Ctrl-j) of a Unix text file, at the Unix command line,enter:

Here, r and n are special escapesequences that tr interprets as Ctrl-m (acarriage return) and Ctrl-j (a line feed), respectively.Thus, to convert a Unix text file to a Mac OS text file, enter:

Opening Unix Executable File Mac

Note: The escape sequences must be surrounded bysingle quotation marks for these commands to work.

awk

To use awk to convert a Mac OS file to Unix, at theUnix prompt, enter:

Unix Executable Mac

To convert a Unix file to Mac OS using awk, at thecommand line, enter:

On some systems, the version of awk may be old and notinclude the function gsub. If so, try the same command,but replace awk with gawk ornawk.

Perl

To convert a Mac OS text file to a Unix text file usingPerl, at the Unix shell prompt, enter:

To convert from a Unix text file to a Mac OS text file with Perl,at the Unix shell prompt, enter:

Note: You must use single quotation marks ineither command line. This prevents your shell from trying to evaluateanything inside the quotation marks. At Indiana University, Perl isinstalled on all UITS shared central Unix systems.

Unix Executable File Mac