How can I merge multiple lines into one line in Vim?

Question

For example, I want to merge such text:

CATEGORIES = ['Books',
        'Business',
        'Education',
        'Entertainment',
        'Finance',
        'Games',
        'Healthcare & Fitness',
        'Lifestyle',
        'Medical',
        'Music',
        'Navigation',
        'News',
        'Photography',
        'Productivity',
        'Reference',
        'Social Networking',
        'Sports',
        'Travel',
        'Utilities',
        'Weather',
        'All',  ]

into

CATEGORIES = ['Books', 'Business', 'Education', 'Entertainment', 'Finance', 'Games', 'Healthcare & Fitness', 'Lifestyle', 'Medical', 'Music', 'Navigation', 'News', 'Photography', 'Productivity', 'Reference', 'Social Networking', 'Sports', 'Travel', 'Utilities', 'Weather', 'All', ]

Why not simply perform a visual selection and then press `J`? — Lynch, Jul 05 '11 at 04:29

score 124 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 21 '20 at 01:47

124

In command mode:

[range]j[lines]

For example: here you want to do the whole buffer:

%j

If you just wanted to do 10 lines from the current cursor position:

j10

If you don’t want to replace the new lines with spaces, use ! after j.

%j!
j!10

And for the uberfancy:

5j20

It would go to line 5, and join the next 20 lines.

edited Feb 21 '20 at 01:47

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 05 '11 at 02:38

TWK

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5

vipJ would be more efficient here. Or, if on the first line before the "[", v%J would work as well. Or, anywhere in the text block, va]J – Drasill Jul 06 '11 at 21:40
2

This should be upper case `J` and not lower case `j`. – d0m1n0 Sep 19 '19 at 13:02

score 56 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 21 '20 at 02:38

56

The most intuitive approach would be to use Vim visual line mode, Shift + v. All you have to do is select the content you want to merge to one line, and then press Shift + j.

edited Feb 21 '20 at 02:38

Peter Mortensen

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answered Oct 07 '14 at 13:31

Aaron Oommen

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I totally agree. This is the way I use it. – Alexandre Bourlier May 07 '15 at 17:17
It seems on my mac I need to use RightShift for this to work, LeftShift selects the next line below adding it to the visual selection. – James McCormac Jun 10 '16 at 10:45

score 17 · Answer 3 · edited Apr 09 '19 at 21:39

17

Use the J (uppercase) key. It will join the lines for you

Check this thread for more join options, and see the help page.

edited Apr 09 '19 at 21:39

Sebastián Palma

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answered Jul 05 '11 at 02:28

jglouie

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score 7 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 05 '11 at 02:40

7

For that particular example, the following commands will work:

:1, 21 j

or

:%s/\n/ /g

answered Jul 05 '11 at 02:40

James Nine

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I found ":%s/\n/ /g" is very slow with a large file, but ":1, 21 j" is super efficient. – Leon Huang Sep 23 '22 at 11:41

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 09 '19 at 21:40

3

:g/\[/,/\]/j

Or

/^CATEGORIES

:v//-1j

And if you have:

edit "Komputer" 
    ala 
    ala 
next 
edit "FortiGate" 
    ala 
    ala 
next

:g/edit/,/next/j

edited Apr 09 '19 at 21:40

Sebastián Palma

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answered Mar 02 '18 at 22:06

Mirosław Leszczyński

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score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Feb 21 '20 at 02:39

2

Or to join everything from the opening square bracket to the closing square bracket (assuming you have lots of these in your file) and leaving other lines intact,

:g/\[/,/\]/j

is quick and simple.

edited Feb 21 '20 at 02:39

Peter Mortensen

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answered Nov 19 '14 at 15:53

pooroldpedro

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How can I merge multiple lines into one line in Vim?

6 Answers6