Changes: Search for non-ASCII characters

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Tip 791 Printable Monobook Previous Next

created September 15, 2004 · complexity basic · author zzapper · version 5.7

Occasionally when you've pasted into Vim from some other application, you get a pesky visible non-ascii character. You can do a ga command to see what it is, but you might want to search for it or substitute it.

Here's a technique. Place the cursor on the character, then:

yl # yank one character into unnamed buffer
/<C-R>" # pull unnamed buffer contents onto search (that's Control-R)

References

Comments

I tried this on Vim 6.3, can't yank Control-M at all.

I have to do this the regular way: /<C-q>013

Also I noticed, I cannot even do this: %s,$,\r$, it always adds \n, not \r (on windows). I had to use gnu-EMACS to do this substitution on windows!

Try ^V^M (two keystrokes).

xxd comes with vim, I use to create binary files. eg. s,\n,\r,g replace all newlines by carriage returns is possible only thru xxd.

For cleaning up win/dos text files for *nix, there's dos2unix (aka fromdos).

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{review}}
+{{TipImported
-{{Tip
 |id=791
+|previous=790
-|title=How to Search for a "non-Ascii Character"
+|next=792
-|created=September 15, 2004 5:37
+|created=September 15, 2004
 |complexity=basic
 |author=zzapper
 |version=5.7
 |rating=81/26
-|text=
-Occasionally when you've pasted into VIM from some other application, you get a pesky visible non-ascii character. You can do a ga command to see what it is, but you might want to search for it or substitute it; here's a technique:-
-place cursor on the character.
-yl &#35; yank one character into unnamed buffer
-/&lt;C-R&gt;" &#35; pull unnamed buffer contents onto search (that's Control-R)
-:h ga
-:h c_ctrl-r
 }}
+Occasionally when you've pasted into Vim from some other application, you get a pesky visible non-ascii character. You can do a <tt>ga</tt> command to see what it is, but you might want to search for it or substitute it.
+Here's a technique. Place the cursor on the character, then:
-== Comments ==
-I tried this on VIM6.3, can't yank Control-M at all.
-I have to do this the regular way: /&lt;C-q&gt;013
+<pre>
-Also I noticed, I cannot even do this: %s,$,\r$,
+yl # yank one character into unnamed buffer
-it always adds \n, not \r (on windows). I had to
+/&lt;C-R&gt;" # pull unnamed buffer contents onto search (that's Control-R)
-use gnu-EMACS to do this substitution on windows!
+</pre>
+==References==
-Well such is life.
+*{{help|ga}}
+*{{help|c_CTRL-R}}
+==Comments==
+I tried this on Vim 6.3, can't yank Control-M at all.
+I have to do this the regular way: /&lt;C-q&gt;013
+Also I noticed, I cannot even do this: %s,$,\r$, it always adds \n, not \r (on windows). I had to use gnu-EMACS to do this substitution on windows!
-perci merci
-, September 15, 2004 17:23
 ----
-perci merci: Try ^V^M (two keystrokes).
+Try ^V^M (two keystrokes).
-Breadman
-, September 15, 2004 19:25
 ----
+xxd comes with vim, I use to create binary files. eg. s,\n,\r,g
-Try plugin hexman.vim
-PeterFr--AT--aol.com
-, September 17, 2004 9:09
-----
-Actually, I've found that I don't have much luck efficiently cleaning up files with vim this way. I'm certainly no expert at it; I'm sure those more skilled than I don't experience the difficulty. When working in linux, I found just using KHexEdit to do the search/replace made such cleanup jobs much quicker. There was virtually no experimentation required and as an actual hex editor, of course there wasn't any escaping required either. Overall, much faster and easier, at least for me. No such luck when I'd have to work on wintel boxes, though, so I spent a bit of time googling and found some freeware hex editors for wintel that I use the same way. Now I rarely bother using vim/gvim for this sort of non-printing character cleanup.
-- F.J.
-fj--AT--raremedium.net
-, October 15, 2004 11:39
-----
-You know, maybe having rudimentary hex editing abilities in vim wouldn't be such a bad idea.
-anon--AT--here.org
-, November 13, 2004 0:04
-----
-xxd comes with vim, I use to create binary files. eg. s,\n,\r,g
 replace all newlines by carriage returns is possible only thru xxd.
-perci merci
-, January 12, 2005 15:30
-----
-for cleaning up win/dos text files for *nix, there's dos2unix (AKA fromdos)
-'''Anonymous'''
-, February 14, 2005 22:00
 ----
+For cleaning up win/dos text files for *nix, there's dos2unix (aka fromdos).
-This tip worked for me perfectly !! I am using Vim from cygwin on Windows XP .
-I amusing this to replace ^M fom files.
-Thanks
-Pankaj
-pankaj--AT--sasken.com
-, March 4, 2005 22:33
 ----
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