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VIS(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual VIS(1)
NAME
vis - display non-printable characters in a visual format
SYNOPSIS
vis [-bcfhlMmNnoSstw] [-e extra] [-F foldwidth] [file ...]
DESCRIPTION
vis is a filter for converting non-printable characters into a visual
representation. It differs from `cat -v' in that the form is unique and
invertible. By default, all non-graphic characters except space, tab,
and newline are encoded. A detailed description of the various visual
formats is given in vis(3).
The options are as follows:
-b Turns off prepending of backslash before up-arrow control
sequences and meta characters, and disables the doubling of
backslashes. This produces output which is neither invertible or
precise, but does represent a minimum of change to the input. It
is similar to "cat -v". (VIS_NOSLASH)
-c Request a format which displays a small subset of the non-
printable characters using C-style backslash sequences.
(VIS_CSTYLE)
-e extra
Also encode characters in extra, per svis(3).
-F foldwidth
Causes vis to fold output lines to foldwidth columns (default
80), like fold(1), except that a hidden newline sequence is used,
(which is removed when inverting the file back to its original
form with unvis(1)). If the last character in the encoded file
does not end in a newline, a hidden newline sequence is appended
to the output. This makes the output usable with various editors
and other utilities which typically don't work with partial
lines.
-f Same as -F.
-h Encode using the URI encoding from RFC 1808. (VIS_HTTPSTYLE)
-l Mark newlines with the visible sequence `\$', followed by the
newline.
-M Encode all shell meta characters (implies -S, -w, -g) (VIS_META)
-m Encode using the MIME Quoted-Printable encoding from RFC 2045.
(VIS_MIMESTYLE)
-N Turn on the VIS_NOLOCALE flag which encodes using the "C" locale,
removing any encoding dependencies caused by the current locale
settings specified in the environment.
-n Turns off any encoding, except for the fact that backslashes are
still doubled and hidden newline sequences inserted if -f or -F
is selected. When combined with the -f flag, vis becomes like an
(VIS_SHELL)
-s Only characters considered unsafe to send to a terminal are
encoded. This flag allows backspace, bell, and carriage return
in addition to the default space, tab and newline. (VIS_SAFE)
-t Tabs are also encoded. (VIS_TAB)
-w White space (space-tab-newline) is also encoded. (VIS_WHITE)
MULTIBYTE CHARACTER SUPPORT
vis supports multibyte character input. The encoding conversion is
influenced by the setting of the LC_CTYPE environment variable which
defines the set of characters that can be copied without encoding.
When 8-bit data is present in the input, LC_CTYPE must be set to the
correct locale or to the C locale. If the locales of the data and the
conversion are mismatched, multibyte character recognition may fail and
encoding will be performed byte-by-byte instead.
ENVIRONMENT
LC_CTYPE Specify the locale of the input data. Set to C if the input
data locale is unknown.
EXAMPLES
Visualize characters encoding white spaces and tabs:
$ echo -e "\x10\n\t" | vis -w -t
\^P\012\011\012
Same as above but using `\$' for newline followed by an actual newline:
$ echo -e "\x10\n\t" | vis -w -t -l
\^P\$
\011\$
Visualize string using URI encoding:
$ echo http://www.freebsd.org | vis -h
http%3a%2f%2fwww.freebsd.org%0a
SEE ALSO
unvis(1), svis(3), vis(3)
HISTORY
The vis command appears in 4.4BSD. Multibyte character support was added
in NetBSD 7.0 and FreeBSD 9.2.
FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11 February 18, 2021 FreeBSD 14.0-RELEASE-p11