> I want to join all lines that are inside a given pattern and occurs more
> than once in the text, ie:
>
> ....
> PatternStart ....
> ....text1
> ....text2
> ...text3
> ..text4
> PatternEnd
>
> PatternStart ........text1....text2...text3..text4PatternEnd
>
> I tried to use:
> :g/PatternStart\_.\{-}PatternEnd/ J
>
> but this joins only first and second line of the pattern.
>
> How can I tell vi to join all lines inside all occurrences of this
> pattern with variable containing lines?
You're very close:
:g/PatternStart/,/PatternEnd/j
should do the trick. This is a slightly shorter way of writing
:g/PatternStart/.,/PatternEnd/j
where it's easier to see the pattern of
:g/{regexp}/{action}
where {action} is ".,/PatternEnd/j". This {action} uses the
desired range of lines rather than just joining one line to its
following line (as "j" without a range does).
If you want to keep the whitespace, you can use "j!" instead of
"j"...otherwise, Vim will collapse multiple whitespace characters
into a single space (perhaps trying to be smart after a period or
other certain punctuation and putting two spaces?)
-tim
