On 11/30/05, Tim <ignored_mailbox@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > Taking a text file, how can one eliminate at once all superfluous > > blank lines? > > 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 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 $ 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? Paul
