Visual Studio Code - delete all blank lines - regex

Question

I spent some time trying to figure out how to delete all blank lines in Visual Studio Code and I can't get it working. Anybody knows how to do it please?

If I search for ^$ while typing it in search field VSC does find the blank lines (completely blank lines, means no white spaces) but it doesn't remove them when I hit Replace All. It does nothing:

For blank lines with spaces ^\s+$ Search works, but it does not remove them. What it does is it replaces them with a blank line without spaces :))

It must be I am doing something wrong. I just can't figure out what is it. Anybody knows? Thanks.

Lali

I added a comment on the issue you opened about this but for anybody else, $ doesnt actually match the new line character, it matches a zero-width token that exists before the new line character. To replace a new line you need to use \n but VS Code doesn't currently support multi-line regex matches (#313) – Outflank

Thank you Marie. It seems we have to wait for a while. – Lali

Find this in regex mode ^$\n and replace with blank will also work fine. Happy Coding !!! – Trilobate

Easy step: https://mcmap.net/q/55179/-visual-studio-code-remove-blank-lines-from-code – Violoncellist

Answer 1

For those who might be interested - what worked for me in version 1.3.1 (and still works in 1.33.1) to delete blank lines I used ctrl+h (find and replace) alt+r (Use regular expression)

In find box then:

\n\n

In replace box:

\n

This should make two consecutive end of line signs into one.

edited:

If you need to replace more empty lines (more than two) at once, you can use following regular expression in find box:

\n+

If you need to replace also empty lines with whitespaces, then you need to use following regular expression in find box:

\n+\s*\n

VS code is using javascript regular expressions

Prescind

Along these lines, I use ^[\r\n]{3,} – Xanthippe

It's working now. Thanks :) A lots of versions of VSC in between but that's alright. Replace \n\n with \n worked nice. – Lali

Also look at the @Dzumret solution below. In my solution it deletes only lines where there is nothing. His solution deletes lines where there is also some whitespace character (spaces, tabs) – Prescind

This answer does not take all cases, what if you have spaces in blank line – Whydah

If you have spaces or tabs in blank lines, change the first regex to this: \n\s*\n – Slovenia

Great! To remove more than one consecutive empty lines I replaced \n+ with \n. To acocunt for whitespaces too replace (^\s*\n)+ with nothing – Irinairis

I wonder if there's an extension that does the equivalent to Notepad2: select, Alt+R. – Pernicious

Answer 2

What also works is this regex pattern:

^\s*$\n

Then CTRL+Enter to replace all lines.

Explanation of the above pattern:

-----------------------------------------------
|  ^ | beginning of string anchor             |
-----------------------------------------------
| \s | any whitespace character               |
-----------------------------------------------
| '*'| zero or more repetitions               |
-----------------------------------------------
|  $ | end of string anchor                   |
-----------------------------------------------
| \n | new line                               |
-----------------------------------------------

Hanschen

Not sure but only this worked for me, compare to all other answers. Well explained as well. Thank you. – Abey

Placing the \n outside of the anchors is what worked for me. VSCode then allowed it to be replaced with nothing (blank "replace with" field). – Leafage

Ctrl+Enter now inserts line break instead of replacing all. – Gusella

The $ is redundant so you can simplify it to ^\s*\n. – Horeb

Answer 3

Visual Studio Code 1.13.0 Linux Lite:

• Hit CTRL+H
• Select "Use Regular Expression"
• Find box: ^(\s)*$\n (enter many ending \n as you need)
• Replace box: empty
• Click replace all

Empty lines gone!

Epithelium

Answer 4

Here's my regex, it catches all extra new lines and empty lines that contain only space,tabs etc

\n\s*\n

And I replace all matches with \n

Explanation

\n       : New Line
\s*      : Zero or more consecutive white space characters or new lines
\n       : Another New Line

P.S :Remember to choose the regex option in the search window!!

Caste

Answer 5

Try using ^\s*\n in the Replace dialog of VS Code -

Jacobsen

Answer 6

no, you're doing it right.

I get the same behaviour here.

I also tried another regex: (\r?\n){2,} but it seems that it only works for single lines.

maybe there is a preference to change the default regexp behaviour, or maybe VS is just built in such a way (line based)

ofcourse it's not a big deal to cut-paste and back from another text editor.

Pabulum

this helped me only after I replaced all ^\s*$ with empty, then I tried (\r?\n){2,} – Pessa

Answer 7

I don't know about yout, but memorize a lot of commands for me seams a waste of time!

Use the extension "Blank Line Organizer", here's the description:

This extension will help you organize blank lines in the code by removing multiple blank lines. The extension removes blank lines only from the selected lines if any, otherwise from the entire file

How to use it: check the description of extension, but it really seams nice!

blankLine.triggerOnSave boolean true    If set to true, the command will be triggered on save.

In other words, after save the file, it automatically cleans up!

Bombacaceous

Hi @Jun! Im using Sublime Text3 wich has solved a lot of problems, plus is lighter and has some nice features. – Bandsman

what plugin do u use with Sublime Text3? I used to use Webstorm and it is built in. – Puritanism

Html / CSS / JS Prettify – Bandsman

A note about 'blankLine' → be sure to add your language to language ids that it will process. For example add "csharp", to process .csharp files – Epstein

Answer 8

I found the following works best for me in Visual Studio:

Replace: ^\n$ With: <no value here>

This will find all empty lines and clear them out.

Helbonnas

Answer 9

At My case. kobi7 solution (\r?\n){2,} only worked for me, I had to run it again with small modification to make it work for single lines (just changed 2 to 1)

^(\r?\n){1,}

Luxembourg

Answer 10

Code Maid Extension is all you need. You can use shortcut Ctrl M + Space bar to Cleanup your file, It will remove empty lines and format your code. You also can configure about format and cleanup rule. Hope this useful.

Reiche

Not found (on Manjaro Linux). – Bandsman

That's because it's a Visual Studio extension not a Visual Studio Code extension. – Shell

Answer 11

One or more line breaks (\n)+ and replace by \n

Recurvate

Answer 12

There is my version for cleaning empty lines with white space:

find:    (?:\s*$(\r?\n)){2,}
replace: $1

Hayrack

Answer 13

install extention "Remove Blank Lines" in vscode

Clinkstone

Answer 14

Regex to find at least 2 empty lines

\n\s*\n\s*\n

Craner

Answer 15

First remove all blanks in empty lines Remove all blanks only Then remove all empty lines, empty lines is 2 or more line feeds Remove 2 or more occurrences of blank likes

Epochal

Answer 16

Replace: ^\n$ With: "blank space"

Nodarse

and remove every blank space in your document? – Graziano

Answer 17

Windows 10,Visual Studio 2015

Ctrl + H

Find... -> ^\s*

Replace all

Ctrl + A

Ctrl + K + F

Thank you for your question, I learned something new.

Weep

Visual Studio 2015 is not Visual Studio Code. – Unearthly