If you're using do shell script, you can pipe the script through tr
before piping it to awk or cut or whatever.

do shell script "tr '\r' '\n' <" & quoted form of posix path of myFile
& " | awk ..."

(and leave off the quoted form of posix path of myfile at the end of
the awk command).  That will do the conversion one line at a time,
without having to read the whole file into memory at once.


On Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 7:44 PM, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I think I tracked it down, thanks Mark.
>
> Here's where the error occurs:
>
> set fileText to read thisFile
> tell application "TextCommands" to set fileText to convert linebreaks
> fileText to Unix format
>
>  Because the file is so large, the "fileText" variable is empty, and when
> the script is ready to write the converted text back to the file it
> generates a trapped error that leaves the original file untouched.
>
> So I think what I really need to is a way to convert line breaks on a huge
> file without having to read it into memory.
>
>
>
> ES
>
> On Nov 4, 2009, at 8:41am, Mark J. Reed wrote:
>
>> Ed: was this a repeat from a different thread?  Did you make sure the
>> file has UNIX line endings?
>



-- 
Mark J. Reed <[log in to unmask]>