What is the ^M character called?

Question

TexPad is creating it. I know that it is under some deadkey. I just cannot remember it is name.

The blue character:

enter image description here

I just want to mass remove them from my document.

How can you type it?

Related: [Why are special characters such as “carriage return” represented as “^M”?](http://superuser.com/q/763879/53590) on Super User. — user, Jun 05 '14 at 22:18

score 79 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 07 '20 at 13:29

79

It is known as carriage return.

If you're using vim you can enter insert mode and type CTRL-v CTRL-m. That ^M is the keyboard equivalent to \r.

Inserting 0x0D in a hex editor will do the task.

How do I remove it?

You can remove it using the command

perl -p -i -e "s/\r//g" filename

As the OP suggested in the comments of this answer here, you can even try a `

dos2unix filename

and see if that fixes it.

As @steeldriver suggests in the comments, after opening the vim editor, press esc key and type :set ff=unix.

References

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1585449/insert-the-carriage-return-character-in-vim

https://stackoverflow.com/a/7742437/1742825

-ksh: revenue_ext.ksh: not found [No such file or directory]

edited Apr 07 '20 at 13:29

Paulo Tomé

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answered Jun 05 '14 at 17:19

Ramesh

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Thanks, @Ramesh. I have no idea how to do those keyboard codes. You're a good guy. – mikeserv Jun 06 '14 at 00:20
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@mikeserv, use key to use the keyboard symbols. :) – Ramesh Jun 06 '14 at 00:31
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+1 for answering the actual question "what is it called" – andrew lorien Jul 10 '17 at 02:33

score 8 · Answer 2 · edited Apr 07 '20 at 14:34

8

Code

sed -i 's/^M//' filename.txt

While typing ^M in the command, do not use ^M as that only inserts what is displayed, not what causes it to be displayed; use CtrlV CtrlM.

edited Apr 07 '20 at 14:34

Stephen Kitt

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answered Feb 23 '17 at 06:54

Kashyap

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score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 01 '18 at 14:51

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you can also do this with sed

 sed -i "s/\r//g" filename

answered Nov 01 '18 at 14:51

k_vishwanath

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score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Jun 06 '14 at 00:15

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As Ramesh notes, CTRL+V CTRL+M should get you the literal character - though you're not limited to doing this only in vim - you should be able to do the same on any canonical mode tty.

cat ./file | tr -d '\r' >./file

...might do the job.

edited Jun 06 '14 at 00:15

Ramesh

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answered Jun 05 '14 at 17:57

mikeserv

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you're reading from and writing to the same file, would this not cause a problem – iruvar Jun 05 '14 at 19:20
@1_CR Im reading from the `|pipe` file. Its true, an intermediate tmp file would be more robust - but the buffer in the pipe should be enough. Still, in case it isnt, `tr -d '\r' <./file\n$(cat ./file)\nFILE\n` would be a sure thing - provided the file contains no `\000` characters, that is. – mikeserv Jun 05 '14 at 19:28
This will more than likely erase `./file` before `cat` has a chance to read it. All commands of a pipeline are launched in parallel and redirections are processed by the shell **before** the affected command is executed. – jlliagre Feb 23 '17 at 08:33
@mikeserv re the heredoc-containing-`$(cat)` fix: or (significant) trailing empty lines or unterminated last line, or more data than fits in available memory. `(rm file; tr -d '\r' >file) – dave_thompson_085 Feb 23 '17 at 12:37

What is the ^M character called?

4 Answers4

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