Text Editors and Converters

• There is a difference between text files in Windows, MacOS and Linux.

  • The end of the line in text files is a different character for each O.S - the line terminator.

    • Win - \n

    • MacOS - (control)

    • Linux - (line feed)

Commands

file

• file - determine file type

# Check the line terminators
file sample_win.txt sample_mac.txt sample_unix.txt
    sample_win.txt: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators
    sample_mac.txt: ASCII text, with CR line terminators
    sample_unix.txt: ASCII text

• Converting files with dos2unix/unix2dos tools:

dos2unix

• dos2unix / unix2dos

sudo apt install dos2unix

# Convert unix file to dos new file
unix2dos -n sample_unix.txt temp.txt
    unix2dos: converting file sample_unix.txt to file temp.txt in DOS format...
file temp.txt
	temp.txt: ASCII text, with CRLF line terminators

unix2dos -c mac sample_unix.txt
	unix2dos: converting file sample_unix.txt to Mac format...
file sample_unix.txt
    sample_unix.txt: ASCII text, with CR line terminators

# Convert dos file to unix file
dos2unix sample_dos.txt
	dos2unix: converting file sample_dos.txt to Unix format...
file sample_dos.txt
	sample_dos.txt: ASCII text

Editors

nano

• nano - small editor

  • pening multiple files, scrolling per line, undo/redo, syntax coloring, line numbering, and soft-wrapping overlong lines.

nano example.txt

# Shortcuts are deisplayed at the bottom of the screen
# ^ = press CTRL + specified short key
# M- = press ALT + specified short key

• Press CTRL+G to enter the Help menu

• Press ALT+X to disable Help mode

• Scroll with PgUp and PgDown keys

• Press CTRL+C to find the cursor location

• Undo a change with ALT+U

• ALT+A start a selection at the current cursor location and move the cursor

• ALT+6 to copy the selected text

• CTRL+U to paste the copied text

• CTRL+W to search content - ALT+W/ALT+Q to keep searching for the same content

• CTRL+O to save file

• CTRL+X to exit file

Nano Keyboard Shortcuts - by bipinthite

vim

• vim - Vi IMproved text editor

📌 Check the VimHelp manual for more advanced Vim functionalities.

WHAT	PREPEND	EXAMPLE
Normal mode command		:help x
Visual mode command	v_	:help v_u
Insert mode command	i_	:help i_<Esc>
Command-line command	:	:help :quit
Command-line editing	c_	:help c_<Del>
Vim command argument	-	:help -r
Option	'	:help 'textwidth'
Regular expression	/	:help /[

vim example.txt
# Vim opens in the command mode

• Press i for insert mode

• Press ESC key to exit insert mode

• Exit vim with :q

• Exit without save with :q!

• Save and exit with :wq

• Search with /text_to_search

  • n/Nto scroll through searching

VIM Cheat Sheet - by typo209

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