Notepad++

ravivarma kv

Hi.
I have the data as below:

     2433 George has a pillow.

**nothing new
**all the bad news
What is happening.
13984 good to know
Adam knows everything
**not in a good way
12 | new to Columbia
**im in a mood

I have to merge the line beginning with space with the following lines that do not begin with spaces.
Expected result: (in 3 lines)
2433 George has a pillow.nothing newall the bad newsWhat is happening.
13984 good to knowAdam knows everythingnot in a good way
12 | new to Columbiaim in a mood

Can anyone please help me how to execute this in Notepad++

Terry R

@ravivarma-kv said in Notepad++:

I have to merge the line beginning with space with the following lines that do not begin with spaces.

This is a quick solution, however not entrely elegant as it will need running multiple times until no more changes occur.

It works on the premise that we look for a line with a space at the start, then if the following line does not have a space at the start it will merge both lines. By repeatedly running it it will grow the line with a space at the front by appending a “non-space” line at the rear.

Hopefully you know how regexes work. So under the Replace Menu.
Find What:^(\s.+)\R(^[^ ])
Replace With:\1\2
Set search mode as “regular expression” and Wrap around ticked. Click on the “Replace All”, do this multiple time until the Replace function returns “0 occurances were replaced”.

Terry

guy038

Hello, @ravivarma-kv, @terry-r and All,

I found out a simple regex, which needs to be executed one time, only ! I just assume, as Terry did, that pure blank lines are deleted, as well !

So, given, for instance, this sample text below :

 1st line with 1 LEADING space
This is
a text
which does
NOT have any
LEADING space

 2nd line with 1 LEADING space
A single line WITHOUT leading space
 3rd line with 1 LEADING space
2nd multi-lines text
with NO
Leading space

 4th line with 1 LEADING space
   1st line with 3 LEADING space
 5th line with 1 LEADING space


 6th line with 1 LEADING space




3rd multi-lines text
WITHOUT any
leading space


 A last line with 1 LEADING space
This is a
very long
multi-lines text
with
NO leading
space
for all
the
lines !

Use the following regex S/R :

SEARCH \R(?=(\x20|\z)|)

REPLACE ?1$0

Of course, select the Regex expression search mode. You should get the expected text :

 1st line with 1 LEADING spaceThis isa textwhich doesNOT have anyLEADING space
 2nd line with 1 LEADING spaceA single line WITHOUT leading space
 3rd line with 1 LEADING space2nd multi-lines textwith NOLeading space
 4th line with 1 LEADING space
   1st line with 3 LEADING space
 5th line with 1 LEADING space
 6th line with 1 LEADING space3rd multi-lines textWITHOUT anyleading space
 A last line with 1 LEADING spaceThis is avery longmulti-lines textwithNO leadingspacefor allthelines !

I verified that I got the same output, using Terry’s regex solution ;-))

Notes :

This regex searches for any kind of EOL characters, followed by, either :
- A space character or the very end of file ( => Group 1 exists )
- Any kind of character ( other standard char or EOL char, due the empty alternative |)
Due to the conditional replacement syntax ?1$0, this matched EOL character is rewritten ( $0 = Whole match ) only if the group 1 exists. In all the other cases, it is just deleted

Remark :

If you prefer that the joined lines are separated with a space character, we need to distinguish between the standard characters, other than a space char, beginning the subsequent lines and any other character. So, use, instead, the followed regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-s)\R(?=(\x20|\z)|(.)|)

REPLACE (?1$0)(?2\x20)

This time, due to the (?2\x20) conditional replacement, the matched EOL char is replaced with a single space character

And you’ll get the text :

 1st line with 1 LEADING space This is a text which does NOT have any LEADING space
 2nd line with 1 LEADING space A single line WITHOUT leading space
 3rd line with 1 LEADING space 2nd multi-lines text with NO Leading space
 4th line with 1 LEADING space
   1st line with 3 LEADING space
 5th line with 1 LEADING space
 6th line with 1 LEADING space 3rd multi-lines text WITHOUT any leading space
 A last line with 1 LEADING space This is a very long multi-lines text with NO leading space for all the lines !

Best Regards,

guy038