I'm processing a text file that has a funny character in it. I'd like to convert this character to something less funny

%perl -lne "s/Charlie Chaplin/George Bush/g;print" < myfile
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% head -2 /etc/hosts 
##
# Host Database
% head -2 /etc/hosts | od -c 
0000000    #   #  \n   #       H   o   s   t       D   a   t   a   b  
+ a
0000020    s   e  \n                                                  
+  
0000023
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Right -- though a hex dump tends to be more useful in cases like this. And of course, if the odd byte happens to be near the end of a large file, this approach can be tedious...

Here's my favorite -- it prints a histogram of byte values in a data stream or file:

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;

my @ch;
while (<>) {
    $ch[ord()]++ for ( split( // ));
}
printf "%6d %.2x\n", $ch[$_], $_ for ( grep {$ch[$_]} 0..$#ch );
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And it would be easy to make a couple additions/alterations so that it tabulates utf8 characters instead of bytes.

Or just cat -v?

Pax vobiscum,

NovMonk

Update: Here's my code that worked:

 
while (<FILE>){
               s/\222/'/g;
               s/\226/-/g;
               <do more stuff>;
                }
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The character in question is an octal, which I found in an escaped character table once I used Waswas's idea to see what it really was. Thanks again everyone.

May I recommend

tr/\222\226/'-/;
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instead of your two s///'s?

---

The PerlMonk tr/// Advocate

You may indeed. You are a God. Or well, ok, only a Bishop. Regardless, thanks!

NovMonk

Open the file in emacs, cursor over to the character and use C-x =.

Oh, ok, a Perl solution. Making a few assumptions about the variable storing the string, and the text in the region of the funny character ...

use utf8;
$text_before = "abc";
$text_after  = "def";
$text =~ s/($text_before).($text_after)/$1X$2/
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I'm processing a text file that has a funny character in it. I'd like to convert this character to something less funny

Is it a ☺? Those are hilarious!

s/☺/☠/g;

Update: It seems that I should read the replies before making a joke because EdwardG beat me to it!