CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sublimetextlogfile
Sumit Singh
Sumit Singh

Reputation: 310

How to make Sublime Text 3 open a file as text

I am trying to open a .log file while in Sublime Text 3 (v3.2.2, Build: 3211) installed on Mac OS Catalina and I see that it opens with plain hex numbers.

This is a small snippet: 

205b 6465 6275 675d 2031 3631 3736 2330
3a20 6570 6f6c 6c20 7469 6d65 723a 202d

I am not sure why this happens but I am not able to see any quick link for the same anywhere for this issue.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 11401

Answers (1)

OdatNurd
OdatNurd

Reputation: 22791

This is an indication that Sublime thinks that the file that you tried to open is a binary file; it's controlled by this setting (which as seen here defaults to true):

    // Files containing null bytes are opened as hexadecimal by default
    "enable_hexadecimal_encoding": true,

When this is turned on, the file is opened using the Hexadecimal encoding as a warning to you that the file is (or seems to be) a binary file. If the file is actually binary, then you probably don't want to be editing it with a text editor.

On the flip side, if the file is actually a text file with something in it that makes it detect as binary, then it's possible that the detection of what encoding the file is actually using may not work the way you expect, which can cause other issues. So in that case the setting opens the file in Hexadecimal as a warning to you that you need to tell Sublime what encoding it should be using.

If you're sure the file is actually a text file (probably a good guess for a .log file), then you can use File > Reopen with encoding to tell Sublime that it should be using a different encoding, for example utf-8. You can also try turning off the above setting so that this doesn't happen, although in that case as mentioned the encoding that's selected may be incorrect.

Related to this, there's another setting that can come in handy:

    // Display file encoding in the status bar
    "show_encoding": false,

This one defaults to false, but when you turn it on the encoding of the current file appears in the status bar on the right hand side, near where you see the indent settings and the type of the current file.

If this is turned on, you can easily verify exactly what encoding is currently being used, and you can also click there to get a menu that lets you change the encoding of the current file or quickly re-open it using a different encoding.

Upvotes: 12

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