How do I replace a newline in Atom?

Question

In Atom, If I activate regex mode on the search-and-replace tool, it can find newlines as \\n, but when I try to replace them, they\'re still there.

Is th

Answer 1

You can use backreferencing:

eg. Replace triple blank lines with a single blank line

Find regex: (\r\n){3}

Replace: $1

You can indicate double blank lines with (\r\n){2} ... or any number n of blank lines with (\r\n){n}. And you can omit the $1 and leave replace blank to remove the blank lines altogether.

If you wanted to replace 3 blank lines with two, your replace string can be $1$1 or $1$2 (or even $1$3 ... $3$3 ... $3$2 ... ): $1 just refers to the first round bracketed expression \r\n; $2 with the second (which is the same as the first, so $1$1 replaces the same way as $1$2 because $1 == $2). This generalizes to n blank lines.