On Sun, 2025-02-23 at 06:44 +0000, RVP wrote: > On Sat, 22 Feb 2025, Dave Tyson wrote: > > > I have a file which has some hex characters 0x80 and higher. > > > > I am trying to search for them so I can replace them. I can see > > them > > and they appear, for example, like \x93 on the screen and occupy a > > single character. > > > > nvi(1) has a poorly-documented Ctrl-X key which can be used to both > enter and > search for (after a fashion) arbitrary chars. To input, let's say, > \x93, do: > > $ LC_CTYPE=C vi foo.txt # must use "C" locale > i # insert mode > <Ctrl-X>93<ESC> # input single: \x93 > <Ctrl-X>94<Ctrl-X>A1<ESC> # input 2 chars: \x94\xA1 > ... > > For searching: > > $ LC_CTYPE=C.UTF-8 vi foo.txt # must use UTF-8 locale for > some reason... > /<Ctrl-X>93<ENTER> # search for: \x93 > > A (comparatively) less bug-ridden technique is to search using > negated > char.-classes: > > [^[:print:][:cntrl:]] # non-ASCII chars. > > That works, except that \x00 is _not_ regarded as a control-char. > > -RVP
The search suggestion worked perfectly! Using Ctrl-X is a trick I was unaware of and has been committed to memory! I searched for 0xba (a Degree symbol) - I needed to see the context to work out if it was temperature or an angle! Thanks to the other responders I hadn't thought of using the META key - will probably have a play with that in the future. I wasn't aware of Grok3 but I have been avoiding AI stuff for now! Cheers, Dave
