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]>