Replace Line Feed with a Space in unix shell script

shell unix replace space linefeed
Possa picture Possa · Feb 18, 2011 · Viewed 15.6k times · Source

I have a text file containing some records. Each record is splitted in 4 rows (not always 4), like the example:

----
row1
row2
row3
row4
----
row1
etc...

Each row is ended with the Line Feed character (LF). Ok, I need to obtain the record in only one line, replacing the LF character with a Space, like in example:

---- row1 row2 row3 row4
---- row1 row2 ...etcetera

Any help or suggestion for the solution? Thanks in advance.

Answer

ajreal picture ajreal · Feb 18, 2011

maybe this can work ?

cat FILE | xargs | sed "s/ ---- /\n---- /g"

Related questions

How can I check if a directory exists in a Bash shell script?

What command can be used to check if a directory exists or not, within a Bash shell script?

Read More
In the shell, what does " 2>&1 " mean?

In a Unix shell, if I want to combine stderr and stdout into the stdout stream for further manipulation, I can append the following on the end of my command: 2>&1 So, if I want to use head on …

Read More
How to read a file into a variable in shell?

I want to read a file and save it in variable, but I need to keep the variable and not just print out the file. How can I do this? I have written this script but it isn't quite what …

Read More