Visual Studio Code - delete all blank lines - regex

Question

I spent some time trying to figure out how to delete all blank lines in Visual Studio Code and I can't get it working. Anybody knows how to do it please?

If I search for ^$ while typing it in search field VSC does find the blank lines (completely blank lines, means no white spaces) but it doesn't remove them when I hit Replace All. It does nothing:

For blank lines with spaces ^\s+$ Search works, but it does not remove them. What it does is it replaces them with a blank line without spaces :)) $^\s+$$

It must be I am doing something wrong. I just can't figure out what is it. Anybody knows? Thanks.

I added a comment on the issue you opened about this but for anybody else, `$` doesnt actually match the new line character, it matches a zero-width token that exists before the new line character. To replace a new line you need to use `\n` but VS Code doesn't currently support multi-line regex matches ([#313](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/313)) — Marie, Apr 06 '16 at 19:28
Find this in regex mode ^$\n and replace with blank will also work fine. Happy Coding !!! — sajal rajabhoj, Jun 28 '18 at 10:29

suchoss · Accepted Answer · 2019-05-08T07:03:58.080

252

For those who might be interested - what worked for me in version 1.3.1 (and still works in 1.33.1) to delete blank lines I used ctrl+h (find and replace) alt+r (Use regular expression)

In find box then:

\n\n

In replace box:

\n

This should make two consecutive end of line signs into one.

edited:

If you need to replace more empty lines (more than two) at once, you can use following regular expression in find box:

\n+

If you need to replace also empty lines with whitespaces, then you need to use following regular expression in find box:

\n+\s*\n

VS code is using javascript regular expressions

edited May 08 '19 at 07:03

answered Oct 05 '16 at 18:57

suchoss

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Along these lines, I use `^[\r\n]{3,}` – RJ Cuthbertson Jan 29 '17 at 04:44
It's working now. Thanks :) A lots of versions of VSC in between but that's alright. Replace \n\n with \n worked nice. – Joz Nov 18 '18 at 21:59
Also look at the @Dzumret solution below. In my solution it deletes only lines where there is nothing. His solution deletes lines where there is also some whitespace character (spaces, tabs) – suchoss Jan 23 '19 at 10:43
This answer does not take all cases, what if you have spaces in blank line – dhaker Feb 07 '19 at 12:43
If you have spaces or tabs in blank lines, change the first regex to this: `\n\s*\n` – AsGoodAsItGets Feb 14 '19 at 13:16
2

Great! To remove more than one consecutive empty lines I replaced \n+ with \n. To acocunt for whitespaces too replace (^\s*\n)+ with nothing – Ilario Feb 18 '19 at 11:06
I wonder if there's an extension that does the equivalent to Notepad2: select, Alt+R. – thdoan Nov 15 '19 at 22:20

score 144 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 04 '17 at 19:57

144

What also works is this regex pattern:

^\s*$\n

Then CTRL+Enter to replace all lines.

Explanation of the above pattern:

-----------------------------------------------
|  ^ | beginning of string anchor             |
-----------------------------------------------
| \s | any whitespace character               |
-----------------------------------------------
| '*'| zero or more repetitions               |
-----------------------------------------------
|  $ | end of string anchor                   |
-----------------------------------------------
| \n | new line                               |
-----------------------------------------------

edited Jun 04 '17 at 19:57

Asif Raza

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answered May 17 '17 at 07:02

Dzumret

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Not sure but only this worked for me, compare to all other answers. Well explained as well. Thank you. – Sai May 07 '20 at 04:05
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Placing the `\n` outside of the anchors is what worked for me. VSCode then allowed it to be replaced with nothing (blank "replace with" field). – Eric May 29 '20 at 20:12
Ctrl+Enter now inserts line break instead of replacing all. – AATHITH RAJENDRAN Aug 27 '21 at 08:35

score 50 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 23 '22 at 21:23

50

Visual Studio Code 1.13.0 Linux Lite:

Hit CTRL+H
Select "Use Regular Expression"
Find box: ^(\s)*$\n (enter many ending \n as you need)
Replace box: empty
Click replace all

Empty lines gone!

edited Jun 23 '22 at 21:23

BuZZ-dEE

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answered Jun 10 '17 at 04:53

Antonio Delgado

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Shabin Muhammed · Answer 4 · 2018-10-25T10:22:26.823

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Here's my regex, it catches all extra new lines and empty lines that contain only space,tabs etc

\n\s*\n

And I replace all matches with \n

Explanation

\n       : New Line
\s*      : Zero or more consecutive white space characters or new lines
\n       : Another New Line

P.S :Remember to choose the regex option in the search window!!

edited Oct 25 '18 at 10:22

answered Apr 23 '18 at 13:11

Shabin Muhammed

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score 13 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 31 '17 at 06:53

13

Try using ^\s*\n in the Replace dialog of VS Code -

edited Aug 31 '17 at 06:53

Stephen Rauch

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answered Aug 31 '17 at 06:31

VK.

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score 6 · Answer 6 · answered Apr 11 '16 at 07:14

6

no, you're doing it right.

I get the same behaviour here.

I also tried another regex: (\r?\n){2,} but it seems that it only works for single lines.

maybe there is a preference to change the default regexp behaviour, or maybe VS is just built in such a way (line based)

ofcourse it's not a big deal to cut-paste and back from another text editor.

answered Apr 11 '16 at 07:14

kobi7

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this helped me only after I replaced all `^\s*$` with empty, then I tried `(\r?\n){2,}` – Mihai Popescu Oct 05 '16 at 10:50

Marcelo Agimóvel · Answer 7 · 2018-01-09T12:53:53.613

5

I don't know about yout, but memorize a lot of commands for me seams a waste of time!

Use the extension "Blank Line Organizer", here's the description:

This extension will help you organize blank lines in the code by removing multiple blank lines. The extension removes blank lines only from the selected lines if any, otherwise from the entire file

How to use it: check the description of extension, but it really seams nice!

blankLine.triggerOnSave boolean true    If set to true, the command will be triggered on save.

In other words, after save the file, it automatically cleans up!

edited Jan 09 '18 at 12:53

answered Jan 09 '18 at 12:42

Marcelo Agimóvel

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Hi @Jun! Im using Sublime Text3 wich has solved a lot of problems, plus is lighter and has some nice features. – Marcelo Agimóvel May 03 '18 at 01:09
what plugin do u use with Sublime Text3? I used to use Webstorm and it is built in. – Jun May 03 '18 at 02:38
Html / CSS / JS Prettify – Marcelo Agimóvel May 03 '18 at 02:52
A note about 'blankLine' → be sure to add your language to language ids that it will process. For example add `"csharp",` to process .csharp files – tyirvine Nov 04 '20 at 00:56

score 3 · Answer 8 · edited Jun 05 '17 at 12:14

3

I found the following works best for me in Visual Studio:

Replace: ^\n$ With: <no value here>

This will find all empty lines and clear them out.

edited Jun 05 '17 at 12:14

Asif Raza

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answered Oct 14 '16 at 14:27

Alan

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score 3 · Answer 9 · answered Nov 16 '18 at 18:59

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At My case. kobi7 solution (\r?\n){2,} only worked for me, I had to run it again with small modification to make it work for single lines (just changed 2 to 1)

^(\r?\n){1,}

answered Nov 16 '18 at 18:59

Mamdouh

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score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Jun 04 '17 at 15:22

0

Code Maid Extension is all you need. You can use shortcut Ctrl M + Space bar to Cleanup your file, It will remove empty lines and format your code. You also can configure about format and cleanup rule. Hope this useful.

answered Jun 04 '17 at 15:22

Nguyễn Top

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Not found (on Manjaro Linux). – Marcelo Agimóvel Jan 09 '18 at 12:38
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That's because it's a Visual Studio extension not a Visual Studio Code extension. – Rene Juuse Apr 30 '18 at 08:22

score 0 · Answer 11 · answered Sep 03 '17 at 15:06

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One or more line breaks (\n)+ and replace by \n

answered Sep 03 '17 at 15:06

hector

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score 0 · Answer 12 · answered Oct 21 '19 at 19:51

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There is my version for cleaning empty lines with white space:

find:    (?:\s*$(\r?\n)){2,}
replace: $1

answered Oct 21 '19 at 19:51

Artur Paszek

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score 0 · Answer 13 · answered Nov 17 '20 at 05:27

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install extention "Remove Blank Lines" in vscode

answered Nov 17 '20 at 05:27

mohammad ravand

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score 0 · Answer 14 · answered Feb 02 '21 at 13:05

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Regex to find at least 2 empty lines

\n\s*\n\s*\n

answered Feb 02 '21 at 13:05

Marc Thomann

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score 0 · Answer 15 · answered Mar 01 '21 at 15:53

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First remove all blanks in empty lines Remove all blanks only Then remove all empty lines, empty lines is 2 or more line feeds Remove 2 or more occurrences of blank likes

answered Mar 01 '21 at 15:53

jvergara

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score -1 · Answer 16 · answered Jan 08 '18 at 06:44

-1

Replace: ^\n$ With: "blank space"

answered Jan 08 '18 at 06:44

and remove every blank space in your document? – Angry 84 Oct 25 '18 at 23:30

score -4 · Answer 17 · answered Jul 30 '16 at 23:58

-4

Windows 10,Visual Studio 2015

Ctrl + H

Find... -> ^\s*

Replace all

Ctrl + A

Ctrl + K + F

Thank you for your question, I learned something new.

answered Jul 30 '16 at 23:58

the name does not matter

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Visual Studio 2015 is not Visual Studio Code. – Robert Kaucher Sep 16 '16 at 17:48

Visual Studio Code - delete all blank lines - regex

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