Vim delete blank lines

Question

What command can I run to remove blank lines in Vim?

soulmerge · Accepted Answer · 2010-06-18T08:27:14.437

1374

:g/^$/d

:g will execute a command on lines which match a regex. The regex is 'blank line' and the command is :d (delete)

edited Jun 18 '10 at 08:27

answered Apr 01 '09 at 15:36

soulmerge

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Thanks soulmerge. This is my favorite answer, since it actually explains what the :g command does. – Tim Swast Aug 15 '11 at 19:03
5

This will delete all the empty lines(do not contain any white space characters..), but that may not be the unique requirement. Someone may still keep one of the empty line. `:%!cat -s` may be the choice.. – coanor Nov 21 '12 at 05:04
3

:g/^\s*$/d with a regex of 'any possible space char' in the line – oyd11 Aug 16 '18 at 12:32
@soulmerge what about adding range `1,$/^\s$/d` or using tags `'a,'b/^\s$/d`? This does not work for me – Alexander Cska Jul 06 '20 at 20:21
@AlexanderCska should be `1,$g/^$/d` – brownian Nov 11 '21 at 12:46

score 212 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 20 '19 at 12:40

212

Found it, it's:

g/^\s*$/d

Source: Power of g at vim wikia

Brief explanation of :g
:[range]g/pattern/cmd
This acts on the specified [range] (default whole file), by executing the Ex command cmd for each line matching pattern (an Ex command is one starting with a colon such as :d for delete). Before executing cmd, "." is set to the current line.

edited Jun 20 '19 at 12:40

Randall

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answered Apr 01 '09 at 15:35

nearly_lunchtime

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Nice. But not exactly a blank line. – innaM Apr 01 '09 at 16:00
13

Ah, yes, this will match lines containing only whitespace characters. I'll accept soulmerge's answer. – nearly_lunchtime Apr 02 '09 at 09:18
17

that should match blank lines AND lines composed only of whitespaces... (* matches zero or multiple instances of \s...)? – monojohnny Apr 15 '11 at 11:59
14

I would argue pure whitespace IS EXACTLY a blank line, whereas no whitespace is really more of an empty line, don't ya think? ;) – Kasapo Dec 05 '12 at 20:02
5

Oxford says a blank is "a space left to be filled in a document". Interpret that as you may, but this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks! – Joe Tricarico Apr 08 '14 at 15:13
Is there some man page where I can read about the used flags and the available ones for this command. – Prabhat Kumar Singh Nov 27 '14 at 13:17
@PrabhatKumarSingh I know it's late but..yes. Try in vim: `:help :g` (at least if I understand you correctly). I'm not sure what you mean by flags as such since there aren't really any here I think but the command the answer here uses is `:g`. – Pryftan Feb 06 '20 at 12:22

score 56 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 01 '09 at 15:36

56

:v/./d

or

:g/^$/d

or

:%!cat -s

answered Apr 01 '09 at 15:36

mandaleeka

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Neat trick with the :v/./d (easier to type) but then you need to do a :nohl after. – Claes Mogren May 11 '11 at 08:05
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@ClaesMogren or just bounce on control-l – jm3 Jul 21 '12 at 03:19
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@zladuric according to http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Power_of_g it's reVerse global (so it does the command on everything that doesn't match) – adam_0 May 01 '13 at 18:29

score 46 · Answer 4 · answered Apr 07 '09 at 14:52

46

The following can be used to remove only multi blank lines (reduce them to a single blank line) and leaving single blank lines intact:

:g/^\_$\n\_^$/d

answered Apr 07 '09 at 14:52

Draemon

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Could someone explain what the tokens mean? (So, how does it work?) Thanks. – PAStheLoD Apr 19 '14 at 14:18
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`\_$` means the *end-of-line* that can be used inside a pattern (`$` can only be used at the end of the pattern.) Same is with `\_^` that means *the start of a line* and can be used anywhere inside the pattern. So, the pattern matches an empty line, a newline, and again an empty line. See [Vim regex help page](http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/pattern.html). – Wiktor Stribiżew Mar 30 '16 at 07:25
1

Another way to do the same: `:g/^$/,/./-j` – SergioAraujo Dec 21 '16 at 10:54

score 15 · Answer 5 · edited Oct 26 '12 at 08:04

15

how to remove all the blanks lines
```
:%s,\n\n,^M,g
```
(do this multiple times util all the empty lines went gone)
how to remove all the blanks lines leaving SINGLE empty line
```
:%s,\n\n\n,^M^M,g
```
(do this multiple times)
how to remove all the blanks lines leaving TWO empty lines AT MAXIMUM,
```
:%s,\n\n\n\n,^M^M^M,g
```
(do this multiple times)

in order to input ^M, I have to control-Q and control-M in windows

edited Oct 26 '12 at 08:04

j0k

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answered Oct 26 '12 at 07:12

gauge00

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You can also use `\r` in place of the `Ctrl-M`. – dash-tom-bang Mar 03 '14 at 19:41

score 9 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 28 '14 at 16:34

9

This works for me

:%s/^\s*$\n//gc

answered Feb 28 '14 at 16:34

allenhwkim

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I use something similar: `:%s/^\n//gc` – Clint Pachl Jul 02 '15 at 09:27
Good, the only that ask confirmation! – Antonio Nov 11 '21 at 18:23

score 8 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 01 '09 at 15:38

8

How about:

:g/^[ \t]*$/d

answered Apr 01 '09 at 15:38

score 5 · Answer 8 · answered May 01 '12 at 13:17

5

work with perl in vim:

:%!perl -pi -e s/^\s*$//g

answered May 01 '12 at 13:17

niejieqiang

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My perl may be a bit rust, but wouldn't `chomp` also do the job? – Mark K Cowan Jun 15 '14 at 21:21

SergioAraujo · Answer 9 · 2017-12-11T18:25:56.850

5

This function only remove two or more blank lines, put the lines below in your vimrc, then use \d to call function

fun! DelBlank()
   let _s=@/
   let l = line(".")
   let c = col(".")
   :g/^\n\{2,}/d
   let @/=_s
   call cursor(l, c)
endfun
map <special> <leader>d :keepjumps call DelBlank()<cr>

edited Dec 11 '17 at 18:25

answered May 01 '12 at 20:10

SergioAraujo

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score 5 · Answer 10 · answered Apr 07 '14 at 16:26

I tried a few of the answers on this page, but a lot of them didn't work for me. Maybe because I'm using Vim on Windows 7 (don't mock, just have pity on me :p)?

Here's the easiest one that I found that works on Vim in Windows 7:

:v/\S/d

Here's a longer answer on the Vim Wikia: http://vim.wikia.com/wiki/Remove_unwanted_empty_lines

score 5 · Answer 11 · edited Aug 17 '17 at 10:10

5

Press delete key in insert mode to remove blank lines.

edited Aug 17 '17 at 10:10

Frits

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answered Aug 17 '17 at 09:26

akp

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cn8341 · Answer 12 · 2014-05-04T00:46:37.380

4

:g/^\s*$/d
^ begin of a line
\s* at least 0 spaces and as many as possible (greedy)
$ end of a line

paste

:command -range=% DBL :<line1>,<line2>g/^\s*$/d

in your .vimrc,then restart your vim. if you use command :5,12DBL it will delete all blank lines between 5th row and 12th row. I think my answer is the best answer!

edited May 04 '14 at 00:46

answered Apr 30 '14 at 06:56

cn8341

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When posting answers, please add and explanation describing what you changed or added or how it works or something. Even though your answer may be the solution, it's likely that some people who read this don't understand what it means or how it works. And please do it in english. – Tim Apr 30 '14 at 07:15
That doesn't really matter here. This question accepted an answer 5 years ago – Tim Apr 30 '14 at 07:32
I think soulmerge's answer :g/^$/d is not the best answer.and I edit to improve his answer with :g/^\s*$/d. but why I cannot watch my edit in "show all edits to this pose"? – cn8341 Apr 30 '14 at 07:41
My answer is better than his answer, and who rejected my answer and why my answer was rejected? – cn8341 Apr 30 '14 at 07:45

score 2 · Answer 13 · answered Aug 01 '14 at 06:48

If something has double linespaced your text then this command will remove the double spacing and merge pre-existing repeating blank lines into a single blank line. It uses a temporary delimiter of ^^^ at the start of a line so if this clashes with your content choose something else. Lines containing only whitespace are treated as blank.

%s/^\s*\n\n\+/^^^\r/g | g/^\s*$/d | %s/^^^^.*

score 1 · Answer 14 · edited Jan 03 '14 at 23:48

1

This worked for me:

:%s/^[^a-zA-Z0-9]$\n//ig

It basically deletes all the lines that don't have a number or letter. Since all the items in my list had letters, it deleted all the blank lines.

edited Jan 03 '14 at 23:48

Smern

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answered Jan 03 '14 at 23:32

user1481441

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Vim delete blank lines

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