CODEWITHSUNDEEP
regexjoinvimlines
Reman
Reman

Reputation: 8109

How to join all lines till next condition?

I can't find out how to join all lines till a next condition happens (a line with only 1 or more numbers) p.e.

input:

1    
text text text text (with numbers)   
text text text text (with numbers)    
2
this text   
text text text text (with numbers)  
text text text  
3  
text text text text (with numbers)  
4  
etc

desidered output:

1 text text text text (with numbers) text text text text (with numbers)    
2 this text text text text text (with numbers) text text text  
3 text text text text (with numbers)  
4  
etc

I normally use global/^/,+2 join but the number of lines to join are not always 3 in my example above.

Upvotes: 6

Views: 770

Answers (3)

Ben
Ben

Reputation: 8905

Just because of the comment by Tim that it couldn't be done with only a regular expression search and replace using Vim, I present this: how to do it with only a regular expression search and replace, using Vim:

:%s#\s*\n\(\d\+\s*\n\)\@!# #

If you're not fond of backslashes, it can be simplified using "very magic" \v:

:%s#\v\s*\n(\d+\s*\n)@!# #

This is adapted from Tim's Perl-style regular expression given in the same comment, improved to make sure the "stop line" only has numbers (and maybe trailing whitespace).

See :help perl-patterns if you're comfortable with Perl and find yourself having trouble with the Vim regular expression dialect.

Upvotes: 3

Ingo Karkat
Ingo Karkat

Reputation: 172510

Instead of the static +2 end of the range for the :join command, just specify a search range for the next line that only contains a number (/^\d\+$/), and then join until the line before (-1):

:global/^/,/^\d\+$/-1 join

Upvotes: 6

mb14
mb14

Reputation: 22596

v/^\d\+/-j will do the trick.

v execute the function for each not matching the condition ^\d\+ your condition : Line starting with a number. -j go one line backward an join. Or if you prefer join the current line with the previous line.

So basically we join every lines not matching your condition with the previous line.

Upvotes: 5

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