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Join lines split with backslash at the end

Terminal - Join lines split with backslash at the end
sed -e '/\\$/{:0;N;s/\\\n//;t0}'
2011-10-09 14:35:23
User: mwgamera
Functions: sed
9
Up
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Join lines split with backslash at the end

Joins each line that end with backslash (common way to mark line continuation in many languages) with the following one while removing the backslash.

Show sample output | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Alternatives

There are 2 alternatives - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
tr -d '\\' | tr -d '\n'
2011-10-13 17:40:02
User: tongrider
Functions: tr
0
Up
Down
Join lines split with backslash at the end
Show sample output | Comments (2) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

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What others think

Very nice. Could you now explain how it works :-)

Comment by flatcap 83 weeks and 6 days ago

PS, your first example is bogus (the second one's good).

When you enter text as a 'here document' the shell interprets and leaves a string with an embedded newline (but no backslash).

A simple proof is this:

cat <<END > Hello \ > World > END Hello World
Comment by flatcap 83 weeks and 6 days ago

Thanks for pointing it out. I fixed the example.

It works like this: When a line ending with backslash is read, it reads and appends the following line to the pattern space (the N command) and removes the backslash-newline sequence (s) from the resulting pattern. Finally, before continuing to the next input line, it repeats everything until substitution does not make any changes (t0 conditionally jumps to the :0) so lines spanning over more than two input lines are correctly joined into single output line.

Comment by mwgamera 83 weeks and 6 days ago

Ah, I understand. I bow to you sed mastery!

Comment by flatcap 83 weeks and 5 days ago

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