Join continued lines together

Question

I have data similar to this

prop1: val
prop2: val
 val continued
 continued still
prop3: val

I want to turn it into

prop1: val
prop2: val val continued continued still
prop3: val

so that it is easier to filter the props I want. I can't think of a simple way to do this.

Any suggestions? using awk/sed/tr/whatever.

Thanks for the correction CharlesB :) – sharat87 Oct 06 '11 at 10:23 — sharat87, Oct 06 '11 at 10:23

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:27

1

This answer to a related question showed me the way. In short:

sed ':a;N;$!ba;s/\n / /g' file.txt

Or if you're on BSD or OS X:

sed -e ':a' -e 'N' -e '$!ba' -e 's/\n / /g' file.txt

Click through on the link for a fairly thorough explanation of how this works.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:27

Community

answered Oct 06 '11 at 10:31

Jordan Running

Yes, this is just what I wanted. Works like a charm. Thanks Jordan. – sharat87 Oct 06 '11 at 10:50

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 06 '11 at 10:16

0

formail -c does this if your input looks like email headers throughout.

answered Oct 06 '11 at 10:16

tripleee

Yes, they are indeed email headers. Also, I don't have the `formail` command. While I can find out and install it, I'd prefer a solution without external dependencies. – sharat87 Oct 06 '11 at 10:22

2 Answers2