Paul Smith wrote:
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
man tr
You may have some tabs.
You might also need to remove consecutive blanks in which case
man sed
and maybe
man regex
--
Cheers
John
-- spambait
1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Z1aaaaaaa@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tourist pics http://portgeographe.environmentaldisasters.cds.merseine.nu/
do not reply off-list
