"man tr" should show you what you need - it is a a translate utility for translating any character set to any other character set.
I think the command "tr \000 \040" will do what you want. -----Original Message----- >From: Mark Freeze <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Sent: Mar 14, 2006 11:22 AM >To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list <[email protected]> >Subject: [TriLUG] Elim. unwanted characters > >I'd like to solicit ideas for the best way to handle the following problem: > >I receive 10 - 20 text files per day from various sources. Several of >the files that I receive are from mainframe shops. (Who can't change >their processes for anything.) When I receive the files, certain >sections are loaded with null characters instead of spaces. Since I >currently transfer these files to my PC for manual processing, I have >been opening the files in UltraEdit, viewing the hex, and replacing >(00) with (20). > >Does anyone know of a utility that I could use to automate this >process? Maybe use cron to look for files in a certain directory and >then run a program to do a 'search and replace' for these characters? > >If I were going to write my own utility in C++, what would be the >quickest way to read in chunks of data and then do the search and >replace? Character by character is slow as some of these files are 80 >- 100 MB. > >I'm just getting started on this process so any suggestions are welcome. > >Thanks, >Mark. >-- >TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug >TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ >TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/ -- TriLUG mailing list : http://www.trilug.org/mailman/listinfo/trilug TriLUG Organizational FAQ : http://trilug.org/faq/ TriLUG Member Services FAQ : http://members.trilug.org/services_faq/
