How can I replace multiple empty lines with a single empty line in bash?

Question

I have a file that contains:

something



something else

something else again

I need a bash command, sed/grep w.e that will produce the fo

Answer 1

For BSD-derived systems (including GNU):

You just need cat with the -s option which causes it to remove repeated empty lines from its output:

cat -s

From man page: -s --squeeze-blank: suppress repeated empty output lines.

Answer 2

Super easy to do with vim. Just open the file and type the following:

:%s/\n\n\n*/\r\r/

That will reduce all blocks of more than 2 new lines to 2 new lines. Hope this helps!