Character to string translator

chr2str reads its input, line by line, and replaces selected characters by arbitrary character strings. The replaced string may have any configuration or composition.

The find/replace-pairs may either be specified as command line arguments using the r-option or via translation tables residing in ordinary text files. Both ways may be mixed in any order as often of necessary.

The character, that is, the source of the substitution, may be specified as an ASCII character or as a decimal, hexadecimal or octal value. ASCII characters are represented by a single byte. Octal values start with a leading zero, like 0123. Hexadecimal value start with 0x, like 0x5a. The string, that is, the replacement, is specified via a liternal character string, like ThiZ. character and string are separated from each other via a single :-sign.