Text files on linux have “<97>” characters

Question

When viewing a particular text file in vim or less on Linux or OS X, all the en dashes show up as highlighted "<97>" characters.

What control-sequence do I need to type in order to substitute the hyphens back? For example, the following doesn't work in vim:

% s/<97>/--/g

Typing bracket nine seven bracket is not the same as typing the actual special character.

Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams · Answer 1 · 2010-04-29 01:29:13Z

up vote 1 down vote accepted

The correct fix is to take your file and run it through iconv to convert from CP1252 to UTF-8.

answered Apr 29 '10 at 1:29

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user35489 · Answer 2 · 2010-04-28 23:25:14Z

up vote 1 down vote

After some troubleshooting I seem to have figured it out. The control sequence is

ctrl-V X 9 7

Substituting that for the <97> in the vim code above works.

answered Apr 28 '10 at 23:16

	Accept your answer? – marcusw Apr 29 '10 at 0:33
	@marcusw: A question must be at least two days old before the OP can accept their own answer. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/6044/… – Chris Johnsen Apr 29 '10 at 1:13

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2 Answers