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Remove line breaks after a match

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# 1  
Old 06-11-2012
Remove line breaks after a match
I need to remove all line breaks in a document after a match, until there is a blank line.

Example below, after the match "THE GREEN TABLE" remove line breaks until a blank line. Then, after the match "THE BLUE TABLE" do the same.

Before:

Code:
THE GREEN TABLE
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing 
elit. Vestibulum consectetur, purus vitae sagittis 
vehicula, justo ipsum accumsan mi, in ornare risus 
turpis vel dolor. Aliquam in auctor nibh. Proin sit 
amet diam purus. Quisque suscipit, dui eu vehicula 
malesuada, tortor neque sagittis dolor, vel placerat 
lacus odio sed justo. 

THE BLUE TABLE
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient 
montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec convallis hendrerit 
odio non sollicitudin. Vivamus condimentum consequat 
velit, ut volutpat mi tristique eget. Donec magna mi, 
tempor at posuere non, pulvinar quis tortor. Integer 
ornare vehicula enim, et gravida neque laoreet non.

After:

Code:
THE GREEN TABLE
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum consectetur, purus vitae sagittis vehicula, justo ipsum accumsan mi, in ornare risus turpis vel dolor. Aliquam in auctor nibh. Proin sit amet diam purus. Quisque suscipit, dui eu vehicula malesuada, tortor neque sagittis dolor, vel placerat lacus odio sed justo. In nec justo neque. Pellentesque eget massa urna. 

THE BLUE TABLE
Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec convallis hendrerit odio non sollicitudin. Vivamus condimentum consequat velit, ut volutpat mi tristique eget. Donec magna mi, tempor at posuere non, pulvinar quis tortor. Integer ornare vehicula enim, et gravida neque laoreet non. Donec diam tortor, pellentesque volutpat hendrerit ac, aliquam a diam.

A sed solution would be ideal, simply because I'm already using it, but awk or perl or whatever that does the job is fine. This is on a Linux server running Centos.
Last edited by Scrutinizer; 06-11-2012 at 09:24 AM.. Reason: code tags instead of quote tags
# 2  
Old 06-11-2012
Try:
Code:
perl -pe 's/^[[:upper:] ]+$/\n$&/||s/\n/ /;END{print "\n"}' file

# 3  
Old 06-11-2012
Code:
  perl -pe 's/^[[:upper:] ]+$/\n$&/||s/\n/ /;END{print "\n"}' file

The text to be matched with not always be upper case. How can I specify specific text to be matched?
Last edited by dockline; 06-11-2012 at 11:49 AM..
# 4  
Old 06-11-2012
Code:
perl -pe 's/^THE GREEN TABLE$/\n$&/||s/\n/ /;END{print "\n"}' file

# 5  
Old 06-11-2012
I'm using:
Code:
perl -pe 's/^THE GREEN TABLE$/\n$&/||s/\n/ /;END{print "\n"}' testfile.txt

However, the file testfile.txt appears unchanged.
# 6  
Old 06-11-2012
Try:
Code:
perl -pe 's/THE GREEN TABLE/\n$&/||s/\n/ /;END{print "\n"}' testfile.txt

# 7  
Old 06-11-2012
Getting closer. That removed the line breaks from the entire document, rather than just the line breaks after the match - "THE GREEN TABLE".
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