Linux Runs on Text: Understanding & Handling Text

Text plays a central role in the Linux operating system. Take better control of your system with a firm understanding of what text is and how best to handle, format and convert it.

Jerry Peek

Sunday, April 5th, 2009

This month, as another part of the series about using text on Linux systems, we’ll introduce “plain text” and how you can restructure it. We’ll see how to identify text from different systems (Unix, DOS, Mac) and to convert text between systems. The article ends with some examples, and there’ll be lots more next month.

If you’re used to clicking on files to view and edit them, you’ll probably find some new tools and concepts here. Gurus, please have a look at the main example and be sure it’s familiar.

The fundamental concept is the role of the newline (line feed) character. Reformatting text is basically a matter of juggling newlines. Let’s dig in.

What’s Text?

As I wrote in last month’s column, Linux runs on text. Text comes in a lot of flavors. What we’ll cover this month is plain text: a…

Please log in to view this content.

Not Yet a Member?