Getting a text file rid of all superfluous blank lines
Tim
ignored_mailbox at yahoo.com.au
Wed Nov 30 13:53:55 UTC 2005
Tim:
>> I used to know of something that did that (something with various
>> different reformatting options for massaging text files), but I can't
>> think what it was. Quickly looking at the man file for the cat program,
>> you could do something like:
>>
>> cat --squeeze-blank inputfilename -> outputfilename
Paul Smith:
> Thanks, Tim and Paul. Paul's method does not mysteriously work:
>
> $ more file1.txt
> word1
>
>
>
> word2
>
> word3
> $ more -s file1.txt > file2.txt
> $ more file2.txt
> word1
>
>
>
> word2
>
> word3
Hmm, seems to work for me. Both with the "less" and "more" programs, as
well as the "cat" program.
> Tim's way works partially, i.e., many blank lines are in effect
> erased, but some remain. I suspect that the left blank lines are not
> blank lines although they look like blank lines. Can one go further
> with deleting the left "false" blank lines?
In what way do they remain? Can you provide an actual example? (Rather
than an explanation of what's happening.)
What I see is that all consecutive blank lines are replaced by a single
blank line, on the file I tried it with.
e.g. Tested on /etc/selinux/targeted/contexts/files/file_contexts
If you want to remove all blank lines, then perhaps you could use grep.
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