Powershell Replace two empty lines with one

Question

I have text files that are generated with 2 empty lines between each block of text. I could use Notepad++ to do this using replace \r\n\r\n with \r\n, but there has to be a way to do this automatically.

I've tried to come up with something in Powershell, but nothing has worked so far.

This is what I've tried so far:

(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("\n\n",'\n') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("\s+\r\n+",'\r\n') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("\r\n+",'') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("\n+",'') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("\r\n\r\n",'\r\n') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("^(\s+\r\n)",'\r\n') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("^(\s+\r\n+)",'\r\n') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("^(\r\n+)",'\r\n') | Set-Content .\test.txt
(Get-Content .\test.txt).Replace("\r\n",'\b') | Set-Content .\test.txt

What are the contents of Test.txt You might be able to remove the white spaces using the Trim() method. — user4317867
– user4317867, Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 23:27
@Ramil If you found any of the answers helpful, please accept them. — iTayb
– iTayb, Commented Jun 25, 2016 at 8:02
Sorry, forgot to add the contents.. I'm currently working on a test file, that looks something like that. text <empty line1><empty line2>next block of text (sorry, I don't know how to add empty lines in comments, but you should get what I mean :P) — Ramil
– Ramil, Commented Jun 25, 2016 at 8:31

iTayb · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-24 23:47:02Z

6

Get-Content returns a list of strings, and not a whole piece of text, like you need. Ovbiously you meant running this Replace method on a string, and not on a list of strings.

Use Get-Content -Raw .\test.txt to load the file content as one long string.

Also, the correct form of the replacement would be:

Replace("`r`n`r`n", "`r`n")

To sum up:

(Get-Content -Raw .\test.txt).Replace("`r`n`r`n", "`r`n") | Set-Content .\test.txt

Will do the job.

Another approach would be to just filter out empty lines:

$data = Get-Content .\test.txt
$data | Where-Object { $_ } | Set-Content .\test.txt

edited Jun 24, 2016 at 23:47

answered Jun 24, 2016 at 23:37

iTayb

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2 Comments

TessellatingHeckler Over a year ago

Another approach would be to just filter out empty lines: - $data -ne ''

Ramil Over a year ago

@iTayb Thanks, it works :D I used the first solution since I don't want to remove all empty lines. So Powershell sometimes accepts regex.. commands as such \n, but sometimes requires the backtick version `n. Can you point me to some material why is that ?

Mathias R. Jessen · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-24 23:41:06Z

4

PowerShell uses backticks ` not backslashes \ to escape special characters:

(Get-Content .\test.txt) -replace "(`r?`n){2}",$([Environment]::Newline) | Set-Content .\test.txt

Using the regex -replace operator with a conditional carriage return will match any type of newline.

answered Jun 24, 2016 at 23:41

Mathias R. Jessen

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1 Comment

Ramil Over a year ago

Thanks for pointing this out. I found it out yesterday when I tried to escape _ (underscore) between a variable and a string (like: Rename-Item -Path $LogPath -NewName "$Today`_logfile.log"). Useful for anyone who haven't figured this out yet :)

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