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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

vim

  • vim - Vi IMproved text editor

📌 Check the VimHelp manual for more advanced Vim functionalities.

WHATPREPENDEXAMPLE

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

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