How does :g/^$/,/./-j (reduce multiple blank lines to a single blank) work in vim?

Posted by Mert Nuhoglu on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Mert Nuhoglu
Published on 2010-06-13T11:18:53Z Indexed on 2010/06/13 11:22 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 265

Filed under:

regex

|

vim

|

description

In the article, Vim Regular Expressions, Oleg Raisky gives the following command to reduce multiple blank lines to a single blank:

:g/^$/,/./-j

Can someone please describe how this works?

I know :g command and regular expressions. But I didn't understand what the part /,/./-j does.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about regex

Find multiple regex in each line and skip result if one of the regex doesn't match

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I have a list of variables: variables = ['VariableA', 'VariableB','VariableC'] which I'm going to search for, line by line ifile = open("temp.txt",'r') d = {} match = zeros(len(variables)) for line in ifile: emptyCells=0 for i in range(len(variables)): regex = r'('+variables[i]+r')[:|=|\(](-… >>> More
OWASP Regex Repository: Is this regex correct?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I was looking at the regular expression for validating various data types from the (OWASP Regex Repository). One of the regular expressions in there is called safetext and looks like: ^[a-zA-Z0-9\s.\-]+$ My first question is: Is this regular expression correct? complementary question If this… >>> More
Make a Perl-style regex interpreter behave like a basic or extended regex interpreter

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I am writing a tool to help students learn regular expressions. I will probably be writing it in Java. The idea is this: the student types in a regular expression and the tool shows which parts of a text will get matched by the regex. Simple enough. But I want to support several different regex… >>> More
JS regex isn't matching, even thought it works with a regex tester

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm writing a piece of client-side javascript code that takes a function and finds the derivative of it, however, the regex that's supposed to match with the power rule fails to work in the context of the javascript program, even though it sucessfully matches when it's used with an independent regex… >>> More
c# RegEx with "|"

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I need to be able to check for a pattern with | in them. For example an expression like d*|*t should return true for a string like "dtest|test". I'm no regex hero so I just tried a couple of things, like: Regex Pattern = new Regex("s*\|*d"); //unable to build because of single backslash Regex Pattern… >>> More

Related posts about vim

Vim: Use different ~/.vim/plugin/ directories for different versions of vim?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
Like many of you, my custom Vim configuration is stored in my ~/.vimrc, with the plugins, colors, etc. stored under ~/.vim/plugins, ~/.vim/colors, etc. I want to share a single Vim configuration among many servers. Some of these servers run Vim 7, some run the older Vim 6. Most Vim plugins are intended… >>> More
Why isn't the scripts in my autoload folder being executed in Vim?

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to use Pathogen to manage my Vim extensions. My bundle folder looks like this: .../bundle/ +-- vim-pathogen ¦ +-- autoload ¦ +-- pathogen.vim +-- vim-smoothscroll +-- autoload +-- smooth_scroll.vim And my vimrc file includes this: let s:root = fnamemodify(resolve(expand(":p"))… >>> More
Cygwin vim doesn't load files in runtimepath

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I created a custom syntax file, and but none of the files in $VIMRUNTIME seem to load. I followed these pieces of the documentation: http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/filetype.html#new-filetype http://vimdoc.sourceforge.net/htmldoc/syntax.html#mysyntaxfile When I do :echo &runtimepath I… >>> More
Debugging matchit plugin in vim (under Cygwin)

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
The "matchit" plugin for vim is supposed to allow you to use the % key to jump between matching start/end tags when editing HTML, as well as /* and */ comment delimiters when editing other kinds of code. I've followed the exact instructions in ":help matchit", but % still doesn't work for me. It… >>> More
Vim: How to execute commands stored in a textfile opened in Vim

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I store, commands found at http://www.commandlinefu.com/commands/browse, in a text file. If I open this text file in Vim and I want to execute the command where the cursor is actually located I do copy the line with Y, switching to command mode with : and !CTRL+r* Is there a more "lazy" possibility ;) >>> More