How to replace a character by an unprintable character ?

How to replace a character by an unprintable character ?

[J?r?me RADIX]

Hello,

Using M-% or C-M-% how do you replace each `;' in

a;b;c;d

by a carriage return (<RET>) to obtain :

a
b
c
d

The FAQ is not very explicit on this :
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/emacs-faq.text
Question 5.9
It only tells how to *search* for unprintable characters but not how
to replace a character by an unprintable character.

Emacs info file is not clear on this either ( C-h C-k C-M-% )

I've tried several things out in the replacement string without
success :

\n
C-q <RET>
[\n]
$
?\n

none of them work.

If you have an idea...

Thanks,
Jérôme.

Re: How to replace a character by an unprintable character ?

[Jesper Harder]

jradix@bigfoot.com (J?r?me RADIX) writes:

> Using M-% or C-M-% how do you replace each `;' in
>
> a;b;c;d
>
> by a carriage return (<RET>) to obtain :

Type `C-q C-j' as the replacement string.

RE: How to replace a character by an unprintable character ?

[Drew Adams]

    
    Using M-% or C-M-% how do you replace each `;' in
    a;b;c;d by a carriage return (<RET>)
    I've tried several things out in the replacement string without
    success :
    
    C-q <RET>

   
`C-q C-m'    (C-m is RETURN.)

Re: How to replace a character by an unprintable character ?

[Jérôme Radix]

Thanks Drew for your answer.

I've tried that too :
C-q C-m writes ^M in the replacement string, and when doing the 
replacement, I have the following
a^Mb^Mc^Md

It seems it comes from the different line separation conventions (unix 
dos, mac...)

I can't figure out how to get

a
b
c
d

without closing/reopening the file to force emacs to guess in which line 
separation convention to run (I don't know of a way to change it with a 
single command...)

I keep searching...

Drew Adams a écrit :
>     
>     Using M-% or C-M-% how do you replace each `;' in
>     a;b;c;d by a carriage return (<RET>)
>     I've tried several things out in the replacement string without
>     success :
>     
>     C-q <RET>
> 
>    
> `C-q C-m'    (C-m is RETURN.)
> 
> 

Re: How to replace a character by an unprintable character ?

[Jérôme Radix]

Jesper Harder a écrit :
> Type `C-q C-j' as the replacement string.

It works !!! Thanks a lot Jesper !