Why is [dos] sometimes in the output of a save in "vim". such as: "foo.txt [dos] 38L, 193C"?
In certain text files, after doing a save in vim
with :w
, the output mentions [dos]
as such:"foo.txt" [dos] 38L, 193C
Why is [dos]
displayed?
As a simple test, I've created a new file with vim
on a FAT32
disk attached to my Mac. Those files don't display [dos]
after a save in vim
. I copied that file to /tmp
(native MacOS format). Opening it there does not display [dos]
upon a save in vim
either.
So, foo.txt
has Japanese characters. A portion looks like:
臣
区
...
草
早
古
谷
"foo.txt" [dos] 38L, 193C
some testing:
/tmp$ file -I foo.txt
foo.txt: text/plain; charset=utf-8
foo.txt
life cycle:
- On XP I created lots of text files using TextEdit that had Japanese characters and saved to FAT32 file system (usb drive).
- They were archived into a
ZIP
format. - That usb drive was attached and copied to my MacBook (MacOS Extended / Journaled).
-
/usr/bin/unzip
unarchived them, and here I am.
Text files are such a basic cross-platform file format. Obviously, "something" is different with those [dos]
marked files... What flags a file as being a [dos]
file?
What flags a file as being a [dos] file?
Line endings. Windows uses CR (carrage return) and NL (newline) characters. Old Mac plain text files use CR and macOS command line editors use NL.