How to remove ^M character with VI

This is how you remove those annoying ^M characters that show up in files previously edited on a Windows/DOS platform.

In VI,

:%s/[ctrlkey+v and ctrl-key+M]//g

actual command,

:%s/^V^M//g

Here’s a walk through video I made. My first actually

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy_w3VDkxKU[/youtube]

8 Responses to “How to remove ^M character with VI”

Author comments are in a darker gray color for you to easily identify the posts author in the comments

1. Raja says:

   January 17, 2008 at 11:38 pm

   Damn.. i was thinking of doing screencasts as well.
   Good job man.

   Reply
2. Danny says:

   January 18, 2008 at 12:11 am

   Thanks sir, more to come. It’s fun

   Reply
3. ciprian says:

   February 7, 2008 at 4:33 am

   hi, the ^M are showing for me on windows xp, i tried this command %s/^M//g but it doesn’t work, as soon as i put in the ctrl-m it says it cant find the pattern, is there some difference that i have to do to get to use this command on windows?

   Reply
4. ciprian says:

   February 7, 2008 at 4:48 am

   i found this to work on windows xp

   %s/\r//g

   to replace all ^M with nothing in the whole file

   Reply
5. Danny says:

   February 9, 2008 at 3:42 am

   Thanks for sharing the solution ciprian.

   Reply
6. Liberta Design says:

   June 29, 2008 at 11:00 pm

   Thanks man, very helpful.

   Reply
7. Eric says:

   January 1, 2010 at 10:42 am

   Hi Ciprian, i am editing the file vi putty remoting from win 2008 SBS and the command %s/\r//g does’t seems to work either.

   Thanks in advance

   Reply
8. ciprian says:

   January 5, 2010 at 10:20 am

   Eric,

   You are remoting into a linux box or win xp box?
   If linux then pres %s/Ctrl-VCtrl-M//g
   The Ctrl-VCtrl-M should show up like a ^M
   If on windows i dont know of any other way besides %s/\r//g
   Let us know if you find out
   Thanks

   Reply