Forrest logo
back to the tr tool

tr:tldr:79b5d

tr: Replace all occurrences of a character in a file, and print the result.
$ tr ${find_character} ${replace_character} < ${filename}
try on your machine

The command tr stands for "translate," and it is a command-line utility in Unix-based operating systems used for character translation or deletion. The < symbol is a type of input redirection that tells the command to take input from a specified file rather than the standard input.

The command you provided uses the tr command to replace all occurrences of a character or set of characters specified by the variable ${find_character} with another character or set of characters specified by the variable ${replace_character}. It takes input from the file named ${filename}.

To understand it better, let's break it down:

  • ${find_character}: This is a variable representing the character or set of characters you want to find and replace. For example, if ${find_character} is set to a, it will find every occurrence of the letter "a" in the input.
  • ${replace_character}: This is a variable representing the character or set of characters you want to replace the found character(s) with. For example, if ${replace_character} is set to b, it will replace every occurrence of the character "a" with "b" in the input.
  • < ${filename}: This indicates that the input for the tr command should come from the file named ${filename} rather than the standard input (keyboard).

Overall, this command translates or replaces characters in the input stream (either through keyboard input or a file) based on the values specified in ${find_character} and ${replace_character}.

This explanation was created by an AI. In most cases those are correct. But please always be careful and never run a command you are not sure if it is safe.
back to the tr tool