As already stated above, it is unclear exactly what you trying to achieve.

The following is probably too simplistic as a complete solution but the two methods described may be useful in parts of your final script.

• $/ is used here to remove duplicate blank lines
• y/// (alias tr///) is used here to remove duplicate spaces

(These are not their only uses.)

[ ~/tmp ] $ cat spacey_text 
1 12  23   32  21 1
a b  c   d    e
1 blank:

2 blanks:


3 blanks:



end_blanks
[ ~/tmp ] $ perl -we 'use strict; { local $/ = ""; while (<>) { $_ =~ 
+y/ / /s; print $_; } }' spacey_text 
1 12 23 32 21 1
a b c d e
1 blank:

2 blanks:

3 blanks:

end_blanks
[ ~/tmp ] $
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