delete empty lines from a txt file

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

How do I strip all the lines that don't contain anything from a txt file?

perl -e 's/^\s+$//' < file.txt
[download]

doesn't do anything.

Comment on delete empty lines from a txt file Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: delete empty lines from a txt file by broquaint (Abbot) on Nov 14, 2001 at 00:31 UTC
You'll be wanting to use that lovely inplace edit switch `-i` `perl -i -ne 'print unless /^\s+$/' your_file.txt` [download] For more info on that ever-handy switch checkout perlrun. HTH broquaint	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Re: delete empty lines from a txt file by davorg (Chancellor) on Nov 14, 2001 at 14:26 UTC
Notice that broquaint also sneaked in the `-n` flag there. That's the one that actually sets up a loop that processes the file a line at a time. And just to be obtuse, I'd write it like this: `perl -i.bak -ne 'print if /\S/' your_file.txt` [download] -- <http://www.dave.org.uk> "The first rule of Perl club is you don't talk about Perl club."	[reply] [d/l]