deleting newline characters but not the "true" \n character Post: 302132053

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting deleting newline characters but not the "true" \n character Post 302132053 by caddyjoe77 on Wednesday 15th of August 2007 04:19:13 AM

08-15-2007

Registered User

deleting newline characters but not the "true" \n character

hi, i have a file that has about 4500 rows. this was an old microsoft access databse and what i am trying to do is take out the old extra \n newline characters but not take out the "true" newline character. I will explain.

i was trying to write a regular expression, but that was not working so i thought PERL would be the best option. The collums are seperated by commas.

Here is the dataset that i am working against.

144,20050892.0, Replacement of IN-FOCUS projector-Bldg 123, Replace malfunctioning In-Focus projector with new one.,- In-Focus projectors are used to project slideshows and other pertinent data to fron mountred screens.

- Intermittent power up problem, kicks on and off. This project was originally in Sept 2001.
- Bulbs have been replaced when it does work it is barely readable.,Infocus LP 640 XGA LCD Multimedia Projector $1699 EA

www.infocus.com,2005-09-29 00:00:00,2005-10-29 00:00:00,Joe Blow user
my phone number 5551212,5,0,3,None,,1,2005-10-12 00:00:00,C

Pretty much i need to remove the extra \n newline characters without removing the end one. This is what the dataset should look like.

144,20050892.0, Replacement of IN-FOCUS projector-Bldg 123, Replace malfunctioning In-Focus projector with new one.,- In-Focus projectors are used to project slideshows and other pertinent data to fron mountred screens. - Intermittent power up problem, kicks on and off. This project as originally in Sept 2001. - Bulbs have been replaced when it does work it is barely readable.,Infocus LP 640 XGA LCD Multimedia Projector $1699 EA
www.infocus.com,2005-09-29 00:00:00,2005-10-29 00:00:00,Joe Blow user my phone number 5551212,5,0,3,None,,1,2005-10-12 00:00:00,C

The fist column, in this case is 144, and they are numbered sequentially. So the next one would be 145.

can i do this with standard UNIX regular expressions or would PERL be better?

Thanks

caddyjoe77

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LEARN ABOUT ULTRIX

re_comp

regex(3)						     Library Functions Manual							  regex(3)

Name
       re_comp, re_exec - regular expression handler

Syntax
       char *re_comp(s)
       char *s;

       re_exec(s)
       char *s;

Description
       The  subroutine	compiles  a string into an internal form suitable for pattern matching.  The subroutine checks the argument string against
       the last string passed to

       The subroutine returns 0 if the string s was compiled successfully; otherwise a string containing an  error  message  is  returned.  If	is
       passed 0 or a null string, it returns without changing the currently compiled regular expression.

       The  subroutine returns 1 if the string s matches the last compiled regular expression, 0 if the string s failed to match the last compiled
       regular expression, and -1 if the compiled regular expression was invalid (indicating an internal error).

       The strings passed to both and may have trailing or embedded newline characters; they are terminated by	nulls.	 The  regular  expressions
       recognized are described in the manual entry for given the above difference.

Diagnostics
       The subroutine returns -1 for an internal error.

       The subroutine returns one of the following strings if an error occurs:

       No previous regular expression
       Regular expression too long
       unmatched (
       missing ]
       too many () pairs
       unmatched )

See Also
       ed(1), ex(1), egrep(1), fgrep(1), grep(1)

																	  regex(3)

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re_comp