Freak characters

[Wagner_17]

Hi people,

We use a 2.0.3 version of Samba running over a hp-ux 10.20/k580 server. We have some directories sharing files and when this files (typically text files) are transferred to PC´s running Windows, some of then (or all)are created with freak characters at the end of lines.

Anyone can help me?

Hugs

Wagner

[Pete Randall · Accepted solution]

Probably carriage returns/line feeds. Try running the file through the ux2dos command first: ux2dos filename > newfilename


Pete

[Franky_1]

Hi,

normally this problem occurs with carriage return / linefeed chars - if so you can try to remove them using the "ux2dos" command (convert to dos format)

ux2dos >

Regards

Franky

[Darren Prior]

Hi,

As mentioned above, this is caused by Windows and HP-UX treating the end of lines differently. Be very careful about running ux2dos unless you are sure of the file's contents. You should consider what will be creating the files, and what will be used to read them.

regards,

Darren.

PS: Welcome to the ITRC forums!

[Bill Hassell]

These are not freak characters. They will show up in ASCII text files as ^M which is vi's way of showing a carriage return. Because Windows is a totally different operating system (just like mainframes and Macs, etc), sharing files will always require awareness of the different ways data is stored. On a Unix box (HP-UX), every ASCII file is terminated with a linefeed (LF) character but on a Windows box, ASCII files have carriage-return *AND* linefeed (CR-LF) at the end of each line, plus there is usually a ^Z (CTRL-Z) at the end of the file. As mentioned, the dos2ux and ux2dos programs will fix the files, but be aware that if you fix them on the Unix side, running Notepad on the Windows side will show a blackout character for the LF as it is expecting CR-LF. There is no automatic fix for this.

[R. Sri Ram Kishore_1]

Hi Wagner,

Take a look at this thread:
http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=618078

Regards,
Sri Ram