vi

Remove leading white space in vi editor:

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Well it sounds very simple, but thought would be useful for all vi newbies :-)

This is how we can remove all leading white space(s) from all lines in vi editor:

In ex mode:

:1,$ s/^\s*//g

Delete blank lines in vi editor:

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Simple but useful vi editor tip.

Q. How can I delete any blank lines within a file in vi editor?

Ans:

In escape mode type

:g/^$/ d

And all your blank lines should be removed !!

Other ways of removing blank lines from a file using grep, awk and sed

$ grep -v '^$' file

$ grep '.' file

$ sed '/^$/d' file

$ sed -n '/^$/!p' file

$ awk NF file

$ awk '/./‘ file