CentOS Question posted in
The official documentation can be found here.

how to remove new lines in vi editor linux? – CentOS

I am using Linux (centos flavor) and created a file with the following text:

" hello 



  world 
"

Question:

Now, I opened the file in vi editor mode and am able to remove all non blank characters(backspace or delete keys do nothing).
But newline characters persist and I get error saying "no previous regular expression".

What should I do to remove all the new lines so that my file is just empty?? I have tried backspace key many times but no effect and I do not want to use cat > filename to just overwrite the file to make it empty!

Tags:

3

Answers


  1. 0

    You can use dd to delete any lines in vi editor.

    Example:
    You have a file having 6 lines and you want to delete all 6 lines:

    1. Open the file using ‘vi` editor
    2. Go to first line
    3. use 6dd
    Login or Signup to reply.
  2. 0

    :g (for global) could help you here.

    :g/^$/d basically says that "globally find any pattern matching ^$ and delete those".

    If you think that you might have blanks in those lines, you could say ^ *$

    Login or Signup to reply.
  3. 0

    1. open txt with vi

    2. :1 << move cursor to first of file

    3. d << enter delete mode

    4. G << move cursor to end of file

    It will remove all from cursor( in this case, at first of file ) to end of file

    or

    1. open txt with vi

    2. d

    3. N (Number, As many as you want to delete lines)

    4. Enter

    Login or Signup to reply.
Please signup or login to give your own answer.

Back To Top
Search