Remove empty lines in text using Visual Studio or VS Code

Question

How to remove empty lines in Visual Studio?

Is there an answer for this without using regular expression? Just by using a shortcut like CTRL-K-D which formats the document but forgets to remove double blank lines. — Jan
– Jan, Commented Apr 5, 2019 at 10:43
How can we do this automatically in vs code when we format document or as we type? similar to what code maid does on visual studio? — Kepol
– Kepol, Commented Jul 27, 2022 at 7:34

Oliver · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-01 10:41:04Z

208

Since Visual Studio 2012 changed its regex syntax, the original answers by Ala translate into the following in VS 2012:

Remove single blank lines

Old:

^:b*$\n

New:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?$\r?\n

Visual Studio 2013 (thanks to BozoJoe and Joe Johnston):

^\s*$\n

Remove double blank lines

Old:

^:b*\n:b*\n

New:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n

Rolls right off your tongue.

Here is the conversion sheet from MSDN.

edited Mar 1, 2017 at 10:41

Oliver

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answered Dec 21, 2012 at 9:22

Lennart

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7 Comments

BertuPG Over a year ago

BozoJoe's answer, for me, worked well in VS2012 also (Update 4)

Joe Johnston Over a year ago

^\s+$\n changed to ^\s*$\n allow for (no content) pure line feeds.

ErTR Over a year ago

How can i make this automated, like working with CTRL+K+D?

Kyle Delaney Over a year ago

Is this meant to work for strings or for code in the editor?

Lennart Over a year ago

@KyleDelaney Primarily for code in the editor. I don't know if the syntax is the same for strings (if you mean the Regex.* classes)

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Alaa Alweish · Accepted Answer · 2022-02-18 14:23:11Z

157

It's very useful especially if you want to arrange or compare codes, thanks to the people who answer this question, I've got the answer from here and would like to share it with Stackoverflow:

Visual Studio (Visual Studio Code) has the ability to delete empty lines in replace operation using regular expressions.

Click Ctrl-H (quick replace)
Tick "Use Regular Expressions"
In Find specify ^$\n
In Replace box delete everything.
Click "Replace All"

All empty lines will be deleted.

Regular expression for empty line consists of

Beginning of line ^

End of line $

Line break \n

Note that normally in Windows an end of line indicated by 2 characters crlf - Carriage Return (CR, ASCII 13, \r) Line Feed (LF, ASCII 10, \n).

A regex to remove blank lines that are/aren't really blank (i.e. they do/don't have spaces): ^:b*$\n

To remove double lines: ^:b*\n:b*\n replace with: \n

*** for Visual Studio 2013 and above:***

^\s*$\n

and for double lines:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?\n

See the regular expression syntax updates for VS2012 and above in @lennart's answer below

edited Feb 18, 2022 at 14:23

answered Sep 17, 2012 at 4:32

Alaa Alweish

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3 Comments

Leszek P Over a year ago

Works like a charm with cleaning XML file in Visual Studio 2015. Anyone know how to make a shortcut to execute this?

Kyle Delaney Over a year ago

Is there a way for this to work with the automatic formatter?

Naveen Kumar V Over a year ago

^\s*$\n worked fine for me. :)

Anas Alweish · Accepted Answer · 2021-06-08 06:10:39Z

35

Using Visual Studio 2017 and above

in Current Document

use shortcut

Open Tools > Options or press Alt + T + O
Under Environment tab > Keyboard
Search for "DeleteBlank" and select Edit.DeleteBlankLines
Add a new shortcut for example Ctrl+D,Ctrl+E
Assign > OK

select all text and hit the shortcut

edited Jun 8, 2021 at 6:10

answered Oct 12, 2018 at 13:00

Anas Alweish

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3 Comments

Jan Over a year ago

This only delete selected blank line(s) or from current line till the next non-blank line. It's not for the whole document or project.

Kris Morness Over a year ago

Try a select all before running the command, then it'll work.

backnext Over a year ago

You should choose not used shortcut. I took Ctrl + Shift + Alt + D

Joe Johnston · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-06 16:13:57Z

20

Tested in VS 2012 to allow for pure line feeds.

^\s*$\n

hth

answered Jan 6, 2015 at 16:13

Joe Johnston

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5 Comments

EdwardM Over a year ago

this works for me in VS 2015, the accepted answer did not unfortunately

Joe Johnston Over a year ago

Works in VS 2013 as well.

Germstorm Over a year ago

Works well in VS 2017, the accepted answer does not.

Joe Johnston Over a year ago

Works in 2019 too

Joe Johnston Over a year ago

Works in VS2022 Note: a trailing space was treated as part of the pattern. be sure to trim

surfmuggle · Accepted Answer · 2014-09-22 19:14:45Z

19

In Visual Studio 2013 (Version 12.0.20623.01) i removed empty lines with this regular expression ^\r\n In the screen you can see the matched lines indicated by the brown squares.

Visual Studio 2013 replace empty lines

answered Sep 22, 2014 at 19:14

surfmuggle

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1 Comment

BertuPG Over a year ago

I also tried such way, but visual studio stuck frozen for some minutes and then replaced only 1 occurrence of several hundred I have! lol :-D

Shadi Alnamrouti · Accepted Answer · 2022-11-05 07:14:23Z

12

VS 2022 and 2019

Open the replace box: Ctrl + H
Turn on regular expressions: Alt + E
Find: ^\s*$\n
Replace: (leave empty)
Replace All: Alt + A
Turn off regular expression: Alt + E
Hide the replace box: Esc
Format the document: Ctrl + K and then Ctrl + D

edited Nov 5, 2022 at 7:14

answered Jan 13, 2021 at 9:55

Shadi Alnamrouti

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3 Comments

M. Bertolazo Over a year ago

also works in vs2022 :D

fduff Over a year ago

Find: ^\s$ is sufficient as this translates into, only whitespace characters between the beginning and the end of the line.

Vy Do Over a year ago

It works with Visual Studio 2022 Enterprise edition, I applied with 41.000 lines of code of DBContext. Nice answer!

tony09uk · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-24 20:56:48Z

10

I'm using visual studio 2017, non of the above worked for me until I tried \n\r

Steps:

Ctrl + H (opens find and replace)
Select use regular expression (Alt + E)
Enter \n\r into the "Find..." input
Press replace

answered Sep 24, 2018 at 20:56

tony09uk

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Comments

pbz · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-22 08:37:44Z

9

To remove two or more adjacent empty rows with VS2012 use this:

^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?$\r?\n^(?([^\r\n])\s)*\r?$\r?\n

answered Feb 22, 2013 at 8:37

pbz

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1 Comment

Ricardo França Over a year ago

I was looking for a solution to replace two empty lines into just one. It works for me. Thanks!

xmedeko · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-20 16:03:48Z

9

Install CodeMaid and hit Ctrl+M, Space to clean up the code. (It formats the code, like Format Document Ctrl+E, D, as well). You can clean up more files from Solution Explorer.

edited Oct 20, 2020 at 16:03

answered May 13, 2015 at 15:41

xmedeko

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Comments

cmsmith81 · Accepted Answer · 2013-09-07 01:35:48Z

1

In VS 2012, the regex string to use to find and replace all blank lines is ^(?([^\r\n])\s)\r?\n

answered Sep 7, 2013 at 1:35

cmsmith81

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Comments

Geno Carman · Accepted Answer · 2022-04-09 17:29:05Z

0

in VS2019 I just used ^..$ since none of the other answer actually worked.

answered Apr 9, 2022 at 17:29

Geno Carman

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Comments

Keshan Nageswaran · Accepted Answer · 2017-01-10 07:01:35Z

-3

Ctrl + K, Ctrl+D auto formats the current document and that removes unnecessary space in your code. It helps keep your code readable if that what you were looking for.

edited Jan 10, 2017 at 7:01

Keshan Nageswaran

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answered Jan 8, 2017 at 14:04

Marcus Callender

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2 Comments

Vivek Shukla Over a year ago

i am referencing my issue , please look ,it looking ,this is something i was looking . stackoverflow.com/questions/44747909/….

Jan Over a year ago

This doesn't remove double/redeundant empty lines.

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