-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Walter Dnes wrote: > On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 10:12:20PM +0000, Grant Edwards wrote >> How do you get a plain ascii file (no backspacing, no escape >> sequences) out of "man"? Running it through col or colcrt >> doesn't work anymore, because the default output contains ANSI >> color escape sequences. > > I done it! And no, the following "man2text" script is not brought to > you via an uncorrected dialup modem<g>. > > #!/bin/bash > sed "s/^[\[[^m]\+m//g" > > *IMPORTANT* the 8th and 9th columns of the second line are *NOT* "^[". > That's actually the <escape> character as displayed in vim. In vim in > entry mode, you can insert control character by prefixing them with > CTRL-V. To enter the <escape> character, press CTRL-V and release, then > press escape. > > Here's the logic > - You want to get rid of all ANSI terminal sequences > - all ANSI terminal sequences start with <escape>[, have 1 or more > mode characters, and finish off with "m" > - the sed one-liner deletes all such occurences (technically, it > replaces them with nothing). >
Even better would be, as it avoids a call to bash: #!/bin/sed -f s/^[\[[^m]\+m//g (with the same "^[" is really ESC) - -- ABCD -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.11 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAknPrAoACgkQOypDUo0oQOrVYwCfZ/f8eaFpMy0E8+fs96qCG3Dv mscAoLAdGesfNBz3EsRp7aaqUiBwjpeo =qUzQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
