Echo line to a file on windows with a unix linebreak

Question

Is there any way to have this:

echo test line > t.txt

run in a windows batch file or makefile use a unix line ending (\n) instead of a windows one (\r\n)?

Are you restricting yourself to tools that are available on a vanilla install? If not then you could use a better scripting language that .bat files. — David Heffernan, Mar 26 '12 at 17:00
@DavidHeffernan I would really rather use only default tools. If it is totally impossible, I can accept something else, but preferably a tool to do this and not another scripting language, as I want to use this from a makefile — Baruch, Mar 26 '12 at 17:04
Which tool does not accept Windows line ends? Isn't that the tool that you should be fixing? — David Heffernan, Mar 26 '12 at 17:46
@DavidHeffernan The "tool" is VS, and it accepts all line ends. I am just creating some source files by writing some lines into a file as it's header and then copying a whole file into it. The files I am copying are UNIX line-endings, so I end up with a file with mixed line-endings. Every time I open a file like this in VS I get prompted to convert line endings. It is annoying. — Baruch, Mar 26 '12 at 21:04

score 1 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

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Combining answers from here Windows batch: echo without new line and here Is it possible to put a new line character in an echo line in a batch file?

SET LF=^


REM important to have two blank lines after the SET command
<NUL set /p=test line^%LF%%LF%> t.txt

edited May 23 '17 at 11:45

Community

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answered Sep 21 '12 at 16:07

lessthanideal

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 26 '12 at 17:19

No, you can't do it using echo. Echo works by simply writing a line of text followed by a CR/LF pair (the Windows line ending characters). Redirecting to a file just sends that line of text to a file handle instead of stdout. There's no way to modify the line ending characters used.

Echo line to a file on windows with a unix linebreak

2 Answers2