Question

SED: How to replace all occurances of multiple whitespace with a single whitespace?

Asked by: scurtis_1

Hi,

I have a file with a single line of text in it, but the thing generating it puts large chunks of spaces throughout the line. Is there a regex format I can use with SED to replace all of these whitespace chunks with a single space?

Thanks
Scott

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Asked On
2004-03-24 at 04:28:12ID20930173
Tags

sed

,

replace

,

space

,

multiple

Topic

Unix Systems Programming

Participating Experts
4
Points
250
Comments
6

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Answers

 

by: sunnycoderPosted on 2004-03-24 at 04:29:46ID: 10666990

Hi scurtis_1,

sed 's/ */ /g' filename


Sunnycoder

 

by: sunnycoderPosted on 2004-03-24 at 04:32:48ID: 10667001

above will insert single space after each char ...

sed 's/  */ /g' filename

will replace one or more space characters with a single space character (notice extra space char after first / )

 

by: HamdyHassanPosted on 2004-03-24 at 07:35:58ID: 10668652

As sunnycoder said, but make sure there is TWO SPACES before *

sed 's/<SPACE><SPACE>*/ /g' filename

 

by: vinit_kainPosted on 2004-03-24 at 10:26:18ID: 10670206

hi,

sed 's/[<space><tab>][<space><tab>]*/ /g' filename

will replace multiple white space to single space

Vinit

 

by: ahoffmannPosted on 2004-03-25 at 01:59:02ID: 10675524

being pedantic, whitespace  also contains newline and carriage return
Do you mean that too?

 

by: scurtis_1Posted on 2004-03-25 at 04:49:05ID: 10676399

Initially I meant just space characters but I have now included all newline and carriage return characters for my particular problem.

scott

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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