[TriLUG] vi or sed or perl question - joining lines

[Alan Porter]

> I have a big goofy text file I need to get into a more usable format.  
> Basically what I need to do is join every 12 lines into 1 line, down 
> through the entire file.  Does anyone have a good suggestion on how to do 
> this?  I know that I must have done this same thing 2 years ago, because I 
> found an earlier version of this same data from May 2005 that I somehow 
> converted, but I now have no idea how it was done.
>   

It might sound wacky, but I would start by echo-ing "12Jj12Jj12Jj" onto 
an xterm a dozen times. Then cut that with the mouse and paste it into 
your vi session. It's a hack, but it works pretty well. Slow down 
towards the end of the file.

Alan







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