STAT/BIOSTAT 550, 2007: Problems with DOS ??


If you are having problems with your input files that you cannot understand, and if you have downloaded, or copied, or uploaded files, via a Windows machine, it is possible that you have hidden DOS end-of-line or end-of-file characters in your file "mypedigree" which you cannot see. There is a very useful unix utility dos2unix, which will strip out these hidden DOS nonsenses. Just
% dos2unix mypedigree
on abacus.biostat or on any Unix/linux computer.

It is hard to get the computer to show these characters, as much software now just deals with them. One way (I am told) is
% cat -vet mypedigree
(Don't worry what command means, the person who told it to me said, ``Just remember: take the cat to the vet'')