Hiding ^M in emacs

Question

Sometimes I need to read log files that have ^M (control-M) in the line endings. I can do a global replace to get rid of them, but then something more is logged to the log

Answer 1

What about?

C-x RET c dos RET C-x C-f FILENAME RET

I made a file that has two lines, with the second having a carriage return. Emacs would open the file in Unix coding, and switching coding system does nothing. However, the universal-coding-system-argument above works.

Answer 2

Modern versions of emacs know how to handle both UNIX and DOS line endings, so when ^M shows up in the file, it means that there's a mixture of both in the file. When there is such a mixture, emacs defaults to UNIX mode, so the ^Ms are visible. The real fix is to fix the program creating the file so that it uses consistent line-endings.

Answer 3

Put this in your .emacs:

(defun dos2unix ()
  "Replace DOS eolns CR LF with Unix eolns CR"
  (interactive)
    (goto-char (point-min))
      (while (search-forward "\r" nil t) (replace-match "")))

Now you can simply call dos2unix and remove all the ^M characters.

Answer 4

Like binOr said add this to your %APPDATA%.emacs.d\init.el on windows or where ever is your config.

;; Windows EOL
(defun hide-dos-eol ()
  "Hide ^M in files containing mixed UNIX and DOS line endings."
  (interactive)
  (setq buffer-display-table (make-display-table))
  (aset buffer-display-table ?\^M []))

(defun show-dos-eol ()
  "Show ^M in files containing mixed UNIX and DOS line endings."
  (interactive)
  (setq buffer-display-table (make-display-table))
  (aset buffer-display-table ?\^M ?\^M))

(add-hook 'text-mode-hook 'hide-dos-eol)

Answer 5

I believe you can change the line coding system the file is using to the Unix format with

C-x RET f UNIX RET

If you do that, the mode line should change to add the word "(Unix)", and all those ^M's should go away.

Answer 6

(defun remove-dos-eol ()
  "Do not show ^M in files containing mixed UNIX and DOS line endings."
  (interactive)
  (setq buffer-display-table (make-display-table))
  (aset buffer-display-table ?\^M []))

Solution by Johan Bockgård. I found it here.