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---
title: Use Unix line endings in Unix tools
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subtitle: Before you use any Unix tools to process some file, make sure the file only use Unix line endings.
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date: 2018-11-08
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tags:
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- linux
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---
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Before you use any Unix tools to process some file, make sure the file only use Unix [line endings ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline#Representation ).
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Note that many text files you downloaded most probably use Windows line endings.
To [recap ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newline#Representation ),
Type | Line ending | Escape sequence
---|--- | ---
Windows | CR LF | \r\n
Unix (including Linux distro, *BSD and macOS) | LF | \n
Classic Mac OS (i.e. Mac OS 9 or older) | CR | \r
Unix tools, regardless from Busy/ToyBox, GNU or BSD, only support Unix line endings.
So, before you use any of them, make sure you convert the file to Unix line endings, especially before `grep -f` .
Use `dos2unix` to convert from Windows to Unix line endings, e.g.
```
# STDIN to STDOUT
cat input | dos2unix
# STDIN to FILE
cat input | dos2unix > output
# Convert and replace current file
dos2unix filename
```
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If your distro includes BusyBox (e.g. Ubuntu), use `busybox dos2unix` .
