From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Sep 6 23:33:42 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 94557106566B for ; Sun, 6 Sep 2009 23:33:42 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from kline@thought.org) Received: from aristotle.thought.org (aristotle.thought.org [209.180.213.210]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 522DB8FC13 for ; Sun, 6 Sep 2009 23:33:42 +0000 (UTC) Received: from thought.org (tao.thought.org [10.47.0.250]) (authenticated bits=0) by aristotle.thought.org (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id n86NWqqC072070; Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:32:52 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from kline@thought.org) Received: by thought.org (nbSMTP-1.00) for uid 1002 kline@thought.org; Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:33:35 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 6 Sep 2009 16:33:35 -0700 From: Gary Kline To: Mak Kolybabi Message-ID: <20090906233335.GB11209@thought.org> References: <20090906003651.GA7388@thought.org> <20090906204412.GA28721@brisbane.nepharia.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20090906204412.GA28721@brisbane.nepharia.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.2.3i X-Organization: Thought Unlimited. Public service Unix since 1986. X-Of_Interest: With 23 years of service to the Unix community. X-Spam-Status: No, score=-4.4 required=3.6 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=3.2.3 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.3 (2007-08-08) on aristotle.thought.org Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: is there a way of usinf greo to find 3 or 4 blank lines? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:33:42 -0000 On Sun, Sep 06, 2009 at 03:44:13PM -0500, Mak Kolybabi wrote: > On 2009-09-05 17:36, Gary Kline wrote: > > in my manuscript, i have many places where i'ved used several newlines to > > indicate a jump in time, or topic, or mood, or <>. i have lost these > > vertical spacing in all but my original draft. can i use grep somehow to find > > these extra newlines? > > > > if not grep, then sed, ed, or what?! > > Sed has the ability to pull into the current line the next line, appended and > separated by a "\n" character. It's hard to use correctly, I've found, and my > simple demo: > > sed -e '/^$/{N;N;N; s/^\n\n\n$/===4 blank lines==/; }' > > Does not quite work as I'd hoped. But hopefully it's enough to get you started. > Thanks, Mak. iT really *is* more difficult that grep can handle. I could catch the three newlines in C, but the string/line above the break would be painful unless i kept a linked list of linenumbers. too much like work:-) gary > -- > Matthew Anthony Kolybabi (Mak) > > > () ASCII Ribbon Campaign | Against HTML e-mail > /\ www.asciiribbon.org | Against proprietary extensions > -- Gary Kline kline@thought.org http://www.thought.org Public Service Unix http://jottings.thought.org http://transfinite.thought.org The 5.67a release of Jottings: http://jottings.thought.org/index.php