xref: /freebsd/usr.bin/tr/tr.1 (revision 69bd8767a990a230c6f8fc6758a07dfb61ca6b66)
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35.\"     @(#)tr.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
36.\"
37.Dd October 11, 1997
38.Dt TR 1
39.Os
40.Sh NAME
41.Nm tr
42.Nd translate characters
43.Sh SYNOPSIS
44.Nm tr
45.Op Fl csu
46.Ar string1 string2
47.Nm tr
48.Op Fl cu
49.Fl d
50.Ar string1
51.Nm tr
52.Op Fl cu
53.Fl s
54.Ar string1
55.Nm tr
56.Op Fl cu
57.Fl ds
58.Ar string1 string2
59.Sh DESCRIPTION
60The
61.Nm
62utility copies the standard input to the standard output with substitution
63or deletion of selected characters.
64.Pp
65The following options are available:
66.Bl -tag -width Ds
67.It Fl c
68Complements the set of characters in
69.Ar string1 ,
70that is ``-c ab'' includes every character except for ``a'' and ``b''.
71.It Fl d
72The
73.Fl d
74option causes characters to be deleted from the input.
75.It Fl s
76The
77.Fl s
78option squeezes multiple occurrences of the characters listed in the last
79operand (either
80.Ar string1
81or
82.Ar string2 )
83in the input into a single instance of the character.
84This occurs after all deletion and translation is completed.
85.It Fl u
86The
87.Fl u
88option guarantees that any output is unbuffered.
89.El
90.Pp
91In the first synopsis form, the characters in
92.Ar string1
93are translated into the characters in
94.Ar string2
95where the first character in
96.Ar string1
97is translated into the first character in
98.Ar string2
99and so on.
100If
101.Ar string1
102is longer than
103.Ar string2 ,
104the last character found in
105.Ar string2
106is duplicated until
107.Ar string1
108is exhausted.
109.Pp
110In the second synopsis form, the characters in
111.Ar string1
112are deleted from the input.
113.Pp
114In the third synopsis form, the characters in
115.Ar string1
116are compressed as described for the
117.Fl s
118option.
119.Pp
120In the fourth synopsis form, the characters in
121.Ar string1
122are deleted from the input, and the characters in
123.Ar string2
124are compressed as described for the
125.Fl s
126option.
127.Pp
128The following conventions can be used in
129.Ar string1
130and
131.Ar string2
132to specify sets of characters:
133.Bl -tag -width [:equiv:]
134.It character
135Any character not described by one of the following conventions
136represents itself.
137.It \eoctal
138A backslash followed by 1, 2 or 3 octal digits represents a character
139with that encoded value.
140To follow an octal sequence with a digit as a character, left zero-pad
141the octal sequence to the full 3 octal digits.
142.It \echaracter
143A backslash followed by certain special characters maps to special
144values.
145.sp
146.Bl -column
147.It \ea	<alert character>
148.It \eb	<backspace>
149.It \ef	<form-feed>
150.It \en	<newline>
151.It \er	<carriage return>
152.It \et	<tab>
153.It \ev	<vertical tab>
154.El
155.sp
156A backslash followed by any other character maps to that character.
157.It c-c
158Represents the range of characters between the range endpoints, inclusively.
159.It [:class:]
160Represents all characters belonging to the defined character class.
161Class names are:
162.sp
163.Bl -column
164.It alnum	<alphanumeric characters>
165.It alpha	<alphabetic characters>
166.It cntrl	<control characters>
167.It digit	<numeric characters>
168.It graph	<graphic characters>
169.It lower	<lower-case alphabetic characters>
170.It print	<printable characters>
171.It punct	<punctuation characters>
172.It space	<space characters>
173.It upper	<upper-case characters>
174.It xdigit	<hexadecimal characters>
175.El
176.Pp
177\." All classes may be used in
178\." .Ar string1 ,
179\." and in
180\." .Ar string2
181\." when both the
182\." .Fl d
183\." and
184\." .Fl s
185\." options are specified.
186\." Otherwise, only the classes ``upper'' and ``lower'' may be used in
187\." .Ar string2
188\." and then only when the corresponding class (``upper'' for ``lower''
189\." and vice-versa) is specified in the same relative position in
190\." .Ar string1 .
191\." .Pp
192With the exception of the ``upper'' and ``lower'' classes, characters
193in the classes are in unspecified order.
194In the ``upper'' and ``lower'' classes, characters are entered in
195ascending order.
196.Pp
197For specific information as to which ASCII characters are included
198in these classes, see
199.Xr ctype 3
200and related manual pages.
201.It [=equiv=]
202Represents all characters or collating (sorting) elements belonging to
203the same equivalence class as
204.Ar equiv .
205If
206there is a secondary ordering within the equivalence class, the characters
207are ordered in ascending sequence.
208Otherwise, they are ordered after their encoded values.
209An example of an equivalence class might be ``c'' and ``ch'' in Spanish;
210English has no equivalence classes.
211.It [#*n]
212Represents
213.Ar n
214repeated occurrences of the character represented by
215.Ar # .
216This
217expression is only valid when it occurs in
218.Ar string2 .
219If
220.Ar n
221is omitted or is zero, it is be interpreted as large enough to extend
222.Ar string2
223sequence to the length of
224.Ar string1 .
225If
226.Ar n
227has a leading zero, it is interpreted as an octal value, otherwise,
228it's interpreted as a decimal value.
229.El
230.Pp
231The
232.Nm
233utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
234.Sh EXAMPLES
235The following examples are shown as given to the shell:
236.sp
237Create a list of the words in file1, one per line, where a word is taken to
238be a maximal string of letters.
239.sp
240.D1 Li "tr -cs \*q[:alpha:]\*q \*q\en\*q < file1"
241.sp
242Translate the contents of file1 to upper-case.
243.sp
244.D1 Li "tr \*q[:lower:]\*q \*q[:upper:]\*q < file1"
245.sp
246Strip out non-printable characters from file1.
247.sp
248.D1 Li "tr -cd \*q[:print:]\*q < file1"
249.Sh COMPATIBILITY
250System V has historically implemented character ranges using the syntax
251``[c-c]'' instead of the ``c-c'' used by historic BSD implementations and
252standardized by POSIX.
253System V shell scripts should work under this implementation as long as
254the range is intended to map in another range, i.e. the command
255``tr [a-z] [A-Z]'' will work as it will map the ``['' character in
256.Ar string1
257to the ``['' character in
258.Ar string2.
259However, if the shell script is deleting or squeezing characters as in
260the command ``tr -d [a-z]'', the characters ``['' and ``]'' will be
261included in the deletion or compression list which would not have happened
262under an historic System V implementation.
263Additionally, any scripts that depended on the sequence ``a-z'' to
264represent the three characters ``a'', ``-'' and ``z'' will have to be
265rewritten as ``a\e-z''.
266.Pp
267The
268.Nm
269utility has historically not permitted the manipulation of NUL bytes in
270its input and, additionally, stripped NUL's from its input stream.
271This implementation has removed this behavior as a bug.
272.Pp
273The
274.Nm
275utility has historically been extremely forgiving of syntax errors,
276for example, the
277.Fl c
278and
279.Fl s
280options were ignored unless two strings were specified.
281This implementation will not permit illegal syntax.
282.Sh STANDARDS
283The
284.Nm
285utility is expected to be
286.St -p1003.2
287compatible.
288It should be noted that the feature wherein the last character of
289.Ar string2
290is duplicated if
291.Ar string2
292has less characters than
293.Ar string1
294is permitted by POSIX but is not required.
295Shell scripts attempting to be portable to other POSIX systems should use
296the ``[#*]'' convention instead of relying on this behavior.
297The
298.Fl u
299option is an extension to the
300.St -p1003.2
301standard.
302