Re: How do I delete lines matching a certain condition and make sure each line has the right prefix and suffix?

Welcome to the Monastary, cjff150. As a note, it's considered good form to wrap not just code in <code> tags, but input and output as well, in order to avoid whitespace mangling and other formatting issues. See How do I post a question effectively?.

For your various requirements, you will find the ^ and $ Metacharacters useful; they let you specify the start and end of a line, respectively. You'll also find Look Around Assertions helpful. So for your 4 requirements, something like:

s/^(?!\|)/|/;         # Make sure each line starts w/ |
s/(?<!\|)\|?\n/||\n/; # Make sure each line ends w/ ||
s/\|\|(?!$)/| |/g;    # Insert space between || if not at the end of a
+ line
s/^[\s\|]*\n//;       # Delete rows w/o meaningful characters
[download]

Of course, whoever invented this format has given you a raging case of Leaning_toothpick_syndrome.

#11929 First ask yourself `How would I do this without a computer?' Then have the computer do it the same way.

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