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