vi - how to join differents specific lines

Question

I'm looking for a solution about a "paste" problem on vi/vim .

How to join specific lines in a text file? I have a file like this:

15/10/2011 Revolution day
16/10/2011 About Rome
 - differents newspapers
  blogs an feeds
 :) hp
17/10/2011 Yep, another day

and I want to paste everyline that does not start with a number. I've tried something like this... but does not work :-/

:[!^[0-9]]!paste -d ' ' -s

Can somebody help me?

thanks gb

Answer 1

:%s/\(.*\)\n\(^[^0-9]\)/\1\2/g

If you want a space or something between, add it between \1 and \2.

Answer 2

you can do it in two steps in VIM, if that's acceptable:

First, join all lines into a single line.

with the file open in VIM, issue the following keystroke: VGJ

• V = Visual Mode (linewise, rather than character-wise (v))
• G = highlight all lines
• J = Join all lines

Second, split your lines on the date format the resulting lines start with.

with the file open in VIM, issue the following command:

:%s#\([0-9][0-9]/[0-9][0-9]/[0-9]\)#^M\1#g

This will search the single joined line for any string that matches NN/NN/N, where N = 0-9, which matches the date format that your lines start with, and will split on that match.

Answer 3

Use the v with join.

:v/^[0-9]/-1,join

Broken down:

• :v select any lines that do not match regular expression
• /^[0-9]/ any line starting with a digit
• -1, the previous line to the current line
• join combine the lines selected, separated by whitespace

Answer 4

I'm talking about vim, this will not run in vi. Be aware of that.

What about

    :%v/^[^0-9]/d

to delete all lines in buffer , which start with a number.

    ggVG

to highlight all lines

    :w ! paste -d ' ' -s

and after that

    u

to go back to the starting point

Answer 5

please try:

:g/^\d/,/^\d/-1j

and ignore error message E16: Invalid range