Simple regexp: Matching CRLF in a Windows file

Ruby
1

All,

I’m trying to do subs on CRLF in a Windows file, but I’m having a time
of it trying to get the regexp working.

I am sure that I have a text file with Windows newlines (CRLF) embedded
in it

This doesn’t work:

newline = “\C-J\C-M”
puts IO.read(@document.path) =~ /#{newline}/

This doesn’t work:

newline = “\n\r”
puts IO.read(@document.path) =~ /#{newline}/

Do I need to escape the control characters somehow so that I can match
on them?

I’m assuming it’s possible to use control characters in a regexp.

Thanks,
Wes

2

Apparently just matching on \n works.

So, Ruby is really smart enough to use \n as a platform-independent
newline character? Impressive.

Wes

Wes G. wrote:

All,

I’m trying to do subs on CRLF in a Windows file, but I’m having a time
of it trying to get the regexp working.

I am sure that I have a text file with Windows newlines (CRLF) embedded
in it

This doesn’t work:

newline = “\C-J\C-M”
puts IO.read(@document.path) =~ /#{newline}/

This doesn’t work:

newline = “\n\r”
puts IO.read(@document.path) =~ /#{newline}/

Do I need to escape the control characters somehow so that I can match
on them?

I’m assuming it’s possible to use control characters in a regexp.

Thanks,
Wes

3

Wes G. wrote:

I am sure that I have a text file with Windows newlines (CRLF) embedded
in it

This doesn’t work:

newline = “\C-J\C-M”
puts IO.read(@document.path) =~ /#{newline}/

And then:

Apparently just matching on \n works.

So, Ruby is really smart enough to use \n as a platform-independent
newline character? Impressive.

Ruby on Windows automatically replaces \r\n with \n on input and
vice-versa on output unless you tell open to use binary mode:

irb> File.open(“test.txt”,“w”) {|f| f.print “\n” } # write, normal mode
=> nil
irb> File.open(“test.txt”,“r”) {|f| f.read } # read, normal mode
=> “\n”
irb> File.open(“test.txt”,“rb”) {|f| f.read } # read, binary mode
=> “\r\n”
irb> File.open(“test.txt”,“wb”) {|f| f.print “\n” } # write, binary mode
=> nil
irb> File.open(“test.txt”,“rb”) {|f| f.read }
=> “\r\n”

Cheers,
Dave