The tr Operator

Introduction

The translates operator is the hardest of the three to use. It does character by character translation from a search list to a replace list . I would like to thank Jim Allenspach, jima@Mcs.Net, for his help in clearing up problems in implementing this page.

Trial and Error in Pursuit of tr Understanding

To start, here is a "simple" example:

searched string	search list	replace list	Explanation
How are you?	How	Where	H->W, o->h, w->e

If you turn on the complement flag with the same input, only those NOT in the search list are replaced.

searched string	search list	replace list	Explanation
How are you?	How	Where	H->H, o->o, w->w, others substituted with last element.
How are you?	How	1234567	H->H, o->o, w->w, others substituted with last element (7).

With the delete flag set, if a character is to be replaced and there is no replacement character, it will be deleted.

searched string	search list	replace list	Explanation
How are you?	How	12	(delete off) H->1, o->2, w->2, list too short, reuse last item
How are you?	How	12	(delete on) H->1, o->2, w is deleted