Remove empty lines in text using Visual Studio or VS Code

Question

How to remove empty lines in Visual Studio?

[For Visual Studio Code](https://stackoverflow.com/a/50042582/6597375) — Deepu Reghunath, Feb 19 '19 at 12:05
Is there an answer for this without using regular expression? Just by using a shortcut like CTRL-K-D which formats the document but forgets to remove double blank lines. — Jan, Apr 05 '19 at 10:43
How can we do this automatically in vs code when we format document or as we type? similar to what code maid does on visual studio? — Kepol, Jul 27 '22 at 07:34

score 200 · Answer 1 · edited Mar 01 '17 at 10:41

200

Since Visual Studio 2012 changed its regex syntax, the original answers by Ala translate into the following in VS 2012:

Remove single blank lines

Old:

^:b*$\n

New:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?$\r?\n

Visual Studio 2013 (thanks to BozoJoe and Joe Johnston):

^\s*$\n

Remove double blank lines

Old:

^:b*\n:b*\n

New:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n

Rolls right off your tongue.

Here is the conversion sheet from MSDN.

edited Mar 01 '17 at 10:41

Oliver

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answered Dec 21 '12 at 09:22

Lennart

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BozoJoe's answer, for me, worked well in VS2012 also (Update 4) – BertuPG Oct 28 '14 at 12:18
6

^\s+$\n changed to ^\s*$\n allow for (no content) pure line feeds. – Joe Johnston Jan 06 '15 at 16:15
4

How can i make this automated, like working with CTRL+K+D? – ErTR Jun 10 '16 at 09:05
Is this meant to work for strings or for code in the editor? – Kyle Delaney Apr 06 '17 at 19:35
@KyleDelaney Primarily for code in the editor. I don't know if the syntax is the same for strings (if you mean the Regex.* classes) – Lennart Apr 07 '17 at 07:06
Working with VS 2017 – Mar 19 '18 at 10:23
Working with VS 2019 – Suleman Jul 21 '19 at 18:31

Alaa Alweish · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-18T14:23:11.023

It's very useful especially if you want to arrange or compare codes, thanks to the people who answer this question, I've got the answer from here and would like to share it with Stackoverflow:

Visual Studio (Visual Studio Code) has the ability to delete empty lines in replace operation using regular expressions.

Click Ctrl-H (quick replace)
Tick "Use Regular Expressions"
In Find specify ^$\n
In Replace box delete everything.
Click "Replace All"

All empty lines will be deleted.

Regular expression for empty line consists of

Beginning of line ^

End of line $

Line break \n

Note that normally in Windows an end of line indicated by 2 characters crlf - Carriage Return (CR, ASCII 13, \r) Line Feed (LF, ASCII 10, \n).

A regex to remove blank lines that are/aren't really blank (i.e. they do/don't have spaces): ^:b*$\n

To remove double lines: ^:b*\n:b*\n replace with: \n

*** for Visual Studio 2013 and above:***

^\s*$\n

and for double lines:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n

See the regular expression syntax updates for VS2012 and above in @lennart's answer below

Works like a charm with cleaning XML file in Visual Studio 2015. Anyone know how to make a shortcut to execute this? — Leszek P, Mar 04 '16 at 10:51
Is there a way for this to work with the automatic formatter? — Kyle Delaney, Apr 06 '17 at 19:38

Anas Alweish · Answer 3 · 2021-06-08T06:10:39.313

31

Using Visual Studio 2017 and above

in Current Document

use shortcut

Open Tools > Options or press Alt + T + O
Under Environment tab > Keyboard
Search for "DeleteBlank" and select Edit.DeleteBlankLines
Add a new shortcut for example Ctrl+D,Ctrl+E
Assign > OK

select all text and hit the shortcut

edited Jun 08 '21 at 06:10

answered Oct 12 '18 at 13:00

Anas Alweish

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This only delete selected blank line(s) or from current line till the next non-blank line. It's not for the whole document or project. – Jan Apr 05 '19 at 10:41
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Try a select all before running the command, then it'll work. – Kris Morness Oct 01 '19 at 14:26
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You should choose not used shortcut. I took Ctrl + Shift + Alt + D – backnext Feb 10 '21 at 09:14

score 20 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 06 '15 at 16:13

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Tested in VS 2012 to allow for pure line feeds.

^\s*$\n

hth

answered Jan 06 '15 at 16:13

Joe Johnston

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this works for me in VS 2015, the accepted answer did not unfortunately – EdwardM Apr 13 '16 at 22:09
Works in VS 2013 as well. – Joe Johnston Mar 01 '17 at 21:30
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Works well in VS 2017, the accepted answer does not. – Germstorm Jun 08 '18 at 10:52
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Works in 2019 too – Joe Johnston Jun 15 '20 at 16:47
Works in VS2022 Note: a trailing space was treated as part of the pattern. be sure to trim – Joe Johnston Jul 05 '22 at 14:26

score 19 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 22 '14 at 19:14

19

In Visual Studio 2013 (Version 12.0.20623.01) i removed empty lines with this regular expression ^\r\n In the screen you can see the matched lines indicated by the brown squares.

Visual Studio 2013 replace empty lines

answered Sep 22 '14 at 19:14

surfmuggle

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I also tried such way, but visual studio stuck frozen for some minutes and then replaced only 1 occurrence of several hundred I have! lol :-D – BertuPG Oct 28 '14 at 12:12

score 10 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 24 '18 at 20:56

10

I'm using visual studio 2017, non of the above worked for me until I tried \n\r

Steps:

Ctrl + H (opens find and replace)
Select use regular expression (Alt + E)
Enter \n\r into the "Find..." input
Press replace

answered Sep 24 '18 at 20:56

tony09uk

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Shadi Alnamrouti · Answer 7 · 2022-11-05T07:14:23.493

10

VS 2022 and 2019

Open the replace box: Ctrl + H
Turn on regular expressions: Alt + E
Find: ^\s*$\n
Replace: (leave empty)
Replace All: Alt + A
Turn off regular expression: Alt + E
Hide the replace box: Esc
Format the document: Ctrl + K and then Ctrl + D

edited Nov 05 '22 at 07:14

answered Jan 13 '21 at 09:55

Shadi Alnamrouti

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also works in vs2022 :D – M. Bertolazo Mar 18 '22 at 16:33
Find: `^\s$` is sufficient as this translates into, only whitespace characters between the beginning and the end of the line. – fduff Jun 02 '22 at 08:23
It works with Visual Studio 2022 Enterprise edition, I applied with 41.000 lines of code of DBContext. Nice answer! – Vy Do May 07 '23 at 11:03

score 9 · Answer 8 · answered Feb 22 '13 at 08:37

9

To remove two or more adjacent empty rows with VS2012 use this:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?$\r?\n^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?$\r?\n

answered Feb 22 '13 at 08:37

pbz

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I was looking for a solution to replace two empty lines into just one. It works for me. Thanks! – Ricardo França Sep 23 '16 at 14:25

xmedeko · Answer 9 · 2020-10-20T16:03:48.730

7

Install CodeMaid and hit Ctrl+M, Space to clean up the code. (It formats the code, like Format Document Ctrl+E, D, as well). You can clean up more files from Solution Explorer.

edited Oct 20 '20 at 16:03

answered May 13 '15 at 15:41

xmedeko

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score 4 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 01 '14 at 19:58

4

To remove double lines: ^:b*\n:b*\n replace with: \n

Source: http://geekswithblogs.net/mnf/archive/2008/03/04/remove-empty-lines-in--text-using-visual-studio.aspx

answered Apr 01 '14 at 19:58

olegansoft

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This answer is a repeating to the same answers above! – Alaa Alweish Apr 02 '14 at 04:57

score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Sep 07 '13 at 01:35

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In VS 2012, the regex string to use to find and replace all blank lines is ^(?([^\r\n])\s)\r?\n

answered Sep 07 '13 at 01:35

cmsmith81

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Apr 09 '22 at 17:29

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in VS2019 I just used ^..$ since none of the other answer actually worked.

answered Apr 09 '22 at 17:29

Geno Carman

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score -2 · Answer 13 · edited Jan 10 '17 at 07:01

-2

Ctrl + K, Ctrl+D auto formats the current document and that removes unnecessary space in your code. It helps keep your code readable if that what you were looking for.

edited Jan 10 '17 at 07:01

Keshan Nageswaran

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answered Jan 08 '17 at 14:04

Marcus Callender

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i am referencing my issue , please look ,it looking ,this is something i was looking . https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44747909/visual-studio-update-model-from-data-base-issue/44772280?noredirect=1#comment76526844_44772280. – Vivek Shukla Jun 27 '17 at 06:53
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This doesn't remove double/redeundant empty lines. – Jan Apr 05 '19 at 10:33

Remove empty lines in text using Visual Studio or VS Code

13 Answers13

select all text and hit the shortcut

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