[TriLUG] CR/LF

William Sutton william at trilug.org
Sun Feb 27 01:19:13 EST 2005


Actually, I should have been more precise in what I said, I think.

In the instance where you have two operating systems that use the same 
newline format, transferring a text file in ascii or binary should have 
exactly the same effect (no CRLF translation).  When transferring the same 
file between two systems that have different newline formats, it makes a 
big difference.

That said, I agree that the way the files are ultimately retrieved to the 
Windows system from the Linux system is also something worth 
consideration.  If ftp is being used, you can do it in ascii and it will 
solve the problem.  If samba is being used (someone please correct me), I 
believe there is a setting for CRLF translation that you can use.

William

On Sun, 27 Feb 2005, William Sutton wrote:

> Right!  But if it isn't "necessary", they won't translate (which was my 
> point if you reread what I wrote).
> 
> My point was, Windows is the odd-OS-out in the CRLF department.  
> Therefore, when he was ftp'ing stuff to the Windows system, it made the 
> translation for him.  But, now that Windows is out of the picture in the 
> ftp service, the translation is no longer occurring, and putting it into 
> ascii mode will have no effect for the very reason that WINDOWS IS NO 
> LONGER INVOLVED.
> 
> In other words, he has to use a dos2unix conversion on his end.
> 
> William
> 
> On Sat, 26 Feb 2005, Rick DeNatale wrote:
> 
> > It does matter.  In a binary mode transfer you want a byte for byte
> > copy, you don't want to translate bytes which happen to be cr, lf,
> > etc.
> > 
> > ASCII mode tells the FTP client and server that line end sequences and
> > end of file characters should be translated when necessary.
> > 
> > 
> > On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 20:45:29 -0500 (EST), William Sutton
> > <william at trilug.org> wrote:
> > > Question for you guys saying "transfer it in ascii mode":  If I understand
> > > right, Windows is the one doing the CRLF conversion from normal (mac/unix)
> > > files.  Thus, sending it from one normal system (mac) to another (linux)
> > > shouldn't matter via either ascii or binary, correct?
> > > 
> > > I think he's going to have to opt for a solution like this:
> > > 1. mac user uploads file.working
> > > 2. mac user renames file.working -> file.ready
> > > 3. cron job finds file.ready, converts it dos2unix
> > > 4. cron job renames file.ready -> file.done
> > > 5. coder picks up file.done
> > > 
> > > Thoughts?
> > > 
> > > William
> > > 
> > > On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Jeff Groves wrote:
> > > 
> > > > Another option is to transfer the files in ASCII mode instead of BIN
> > > > mode in FTP.
> > > >
> > > > That is supposed to do the end of line conversion as well.
> > > >
> > > > Jeff G.
> > > >
> > > > Andrew Perrin wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >>From memory, I think setting the FTP mode to "ascii" instead of "bin" will
> > > > >take care of this - but it's been a while so I could be wrong.
> > > > >
> > > > >You could also run it through unix2dos which I think does essentially the
> > > > >same thing. Or, barring everything else, you could run it through
> > > > >
> > > > >perl -pi -e 's/\013/\013\010/'
> > > > >
> > > > >Andy
> > > > >
> > > > >----------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > >Andrew J Perrin - http://www.unc.edu/~aperrin
> > > > >Assistant Professor of Sociology, U of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
> > > > >clists at perrin.socsci.unc.edu * andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >On Fri, 25 Feb 2005, Mark Freeze wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >>I have a customer that sends files to my ftp site (currently on a
> > > > >>Windows Server box) from his Mac platform.  The files are nothing
> > > > >>special, just delimited text files. However they can be very large.
> > > > >>(i.e. 100,000 records or 75MB)  The problem is this:  When I switched
> > > > >>the ftp server to my Linux box, my Windows conversion programs no
> > > > >>longer worked.  After much looking, I found the reason was that the
> > > > >>files sent from the Mac had each line in the data termintated with a
> > > > >>hex '0A'.  When placed on the windows box the file magically converted
> > > > >>itself somehow to have a '0D' '0A', asc(13) asc(10), or cr/lf pair
> > > > >>terminating each line. So, to make my long story short, when I
> > > > >>download files from my Windows box, my VB programs can use them, but
> > > > >>when I download them from my Linux server my programs crash. (Because
> > > > >>of the missing '0D'  -  VB wants to have a line terminated by a cr/lf
> > > > >>to use the LINE INPUT command.)  What do you think would be the
> > > > >>easiest, and most importantly *non-interactive* way to handle this
> > > > >>problem?
> > > > >>
> > > > >>Thanks in advance for any help.
> > > > >>
> > > > >>Regards,
> > > > >>Mark.
> > > > >>
> > > > >>------
> > > > >>"I told them I'd ridden shooting stars and said I'd show them how..." --Ozzy
> > > > >>--
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> > > > >>
> > > > >>
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
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