cross-platform line ending conversion utility

This is a simple 'CRLF' translation utility for FreeBSD (c) 2003 by 'Big Bad Bob' Frazier - all rights reserved

This software is covered by the GNU GPL or a BSD-like license See www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html for details on the GPL.

For license and other terms, see COPYING.

This software comes with no warantees, either implied or explicit.

This application has been tested and built on a FreeBSD system (5.0-RELEASE) and as such may not function exactly the same on other systems.

The file 'crlf' is a FreeBSD 'ELF' executable binary and should be copied to a directory such as '/usr/local/bin'. The source files should be copied into a directory such as '/usr/local/shared/apps/crlf'. The make file 'Makefile' specifies the output file as '/usr/local/bin/crlf' so if you build it without changing the make file, the output file will be written to '/usr/local/bin/crlf'.

As with any software package, you should back up any relevant information or files prior to installing or running this application.

Re-distribution of this application shall consist of one of the following:

1. The original 'crlf.tar.gz' as distributed by the author

2. An equivalent archive file containing the following a) crlf (executable binary) b) crlf.c (source) c) Makefile ('make' info) d) README.md (this file)

Modifications to the source files should be noted where applicable.

The 'crlf' application uses a method of file name recursion (via '-r') that more closely resembles a windows application than a nix one. However, it is far more useful to use recursion in this manner than via the 'globbed' method. The traditional nix shell uses 'globbing' to translate a file specification ".txt" into a space-delimited set of file names on the command line. If you use the '-r' option with this list, only those directories that match the pattern would be recursed, and to each of these a file specification of ".*" would be used. Obviously this has very limited usefulness without the 'find' and 'xargs' utilities to properly refine recursive file searches.

Therefore, 'crlf' allows you to pass the file name specification in quotes, to avoid globbing, as follows

crlf -r "*.txt"

This would recurse all directories, looking for files that match the pattern ".txt", and operate on them. If the quotes were not present, files matching ".txt" would be 'globbed' by the shell, and any sub- directories found would be searched with a file name specification of ".". Since it is unlikely you would have a directory name that matches the pattern "*.txt" the 'globbed' option is meaningless, and of very limited use. The behavior of crlf is superior to the 'globbing effect' caused by the shells.