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Re: Editing a text file with sed



This command erases all line breaks
sed -e :a -e '$!N;s/\n/ /;ta' -e 'P;D'
although you have to adapt it to not delete paragraphs. Using regex, the
line would then become something like
sed -e :a -e '$!N;s/\n[^\n]/ /;ta' -e 'P;D'
Good luck.

Sjoerd

Joe Hart schreef:
> I am having trouble using sed to edit text files, heres a good example of what 
> I am looking for:
> 
> <begin 1.txt>
> This is a test
> file, what I am
> trying to do is get the lines to join.
> 
> It isn't a complicated thing,
> but I also want to keep the paragraphs
> separate.
> </end 1.txt>
> 
> I try this command:
> 
> sed s/\n// / 1.txt > 2.txt and I get an error, so:
> sed s'\n/ /' 1.txt > 2.txt and nothing happens.
> 
> I don't get it.  I though \n was end of line, which I am trying to replace 
> with spaces.
> 
> I understand that this would loose the paragraphs, so ideally what I need to 
> do is something like this:
> 
> 1. Replace double line breaks with special sequence not found in text.
> 2. Convert all line breaks to spaces
> 3. Convert special seqeuence to double line breaks.
> 
> I thought sed would be perfect for this, but no such luck.  I can get what I 
> want by using kwrite for step 1 and 2, then OO.o Writer for step 3. (kwrite 
> seems unable to do step 3)
> 
> But ideally I'd like to just have a script to do it, but cannot figure out how 
> to go about it, as sed doesn't seem to be working.
> 
> Joe
> 
> 



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