Usages of tr

The command tr is an abbreviation of “translate” or “transliterate”.

In general, the tr command is executed in the formula: tr [OPTION] SET1 [SET2]. It’s a character-wise command.

Example

For first impression, look at the example below.

$ tr "10" "-_" <<< "110101EOF"
--_-_-EOF

Basically, the tr command translates “1” into “-“ and “0” into “_”. The remain part stays the same.

Other Options

After that easy example, let’s find out what else we can do:

• -s : Replace consecutive repeats of character in the SET1 with single occurrence. It can be used like this : tr -s "[a-z]".
• -c : It indicates the complement of SET1.
• -d : Delete all characters listed in SET1.
• -t : SET2 is extended to the length of SET1 by repeating its last character as necessary. Excess characters of SET2 are ignored.

These options are to be filled into the general formula introduced at the beginning of this article. Straightforward though it is, It still takes practice to master.

For more insights, refer to GOOGLE SEARCH.

bash, linux, shell, tr — Feb 14, 2019