Deleting Blank Lines in Vim

Vim allows you to manipulate text text using powerful global commands (:g). Deleting all blank lines in a file is a classic use case.

The Command

:g/^$/d

Breakdown

• :g: Global command. Executes an action on all lines matching a pattern.
• /^$/: The regex pattern. ^ is start of line, $ is end of line. ^$ matches a line that has nothing in it.
• d: The action. Delete the matching lines.

Variations

• Delete lines containing only whitespace (spaces/tabs):

  :g/^\s*$/d
  

• Invert match (Delete non-blank lines):

  :v/^$/d