Remove empty lines

[curious01]

Hi
I am trying to remove empty lines in my file using:
sed '/^$/d' file.txt

However, nothing seems to be removed. Can you help me here please

my file looks like this:

3621 PSMD5 NM_005047
23626 NELL2 NM_006159

23633
23643 CAPN2 NM_001748

23661 PIAS4 NM_015897
23684 STMN1 NM_005563

Thanks.

curious1

 

[Annihilannic]

Those lines aren't empty, they have spaces on them.

Try sed '/^ *$/d' file.txt.

Annihilannic.

 

[PHV]

Another way:
awk NF file.txt

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[curious01]

Hi Annihannic
Thanks for replying.
I tried your command but it did not change anything in my file either. Any alternatives

curious1

 

[curious01]

Hi PHV
Your suggestions did not work either. Is it because I am using nawk on Sun OS?

curious1

 

[PHV]

Seems you have some control char in your file, perhaps CR (\r) ?

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[p5wizard]

try an "od -xc" on the same excerpt of the file and post the output back here, perhaps there are only tabs in the file?


HTH,

p5wizard

 

[Annihilannic]

Are you expecting these commands to change the original file? If so, they don't. You will need to redirect the output to a new file.

[tt]sed '/^ *$/d' file.txt > file2.txt[/tt]

If you knew that already, ignore me.

Annihilannic.

 

[curious01]

Hi P5wizard,
May I ask what you mean " by adding "od -xc" on the same excerpt of the file and post the output back here"? Sorry, I am still a green beginner in this area
Maybe I explain a little about my files.
1)I extracted data from certain columns in Excel tables and saved it as tab-delimited file.
2)After that, I compared 2 files and extract those present in both files.
3)the result I obtained contain many blank/empty lines which I now want to remove using the sed command.

I did not manage to do this with the sed command I mentioned earlier.

Hope you can help.

curious1

 

[Annihilannic]

Try

[tt]sed '/^[ (tab)]*$/d' file.txt > file2.txt[/tt]

However where it says "(tab)" just hit the tab key to insert a tab character.

So it should look like this:

[tt]sed '/^[ ]*$/d' file.txt > file2.txt[/tt]


Annihilannic.

 

[p5wizard]

you have a piece of your datafile in another file?

od -xc /path/to/piece

you created that excerpt by head or tail?

tail -10 /path/to/file|od -xc

paste the output of the od -xc back here please



HTH,

p5wizard