Put words seperated by whitespace on new lines

Question

I have a Dockerfile with a lot of dependencies, it's very hard to see changes to the deps list in git diffs. How can i put every dependency on a new line using preferably substitute :s/?

Example:

RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
    python3-pip rsync git tar make \
    gcc-9 g++-9 gfortran-9 \
    build-essential libssl-dev libegl-dev pkg-config \
    libx11-xcb-dev libfontenc-dev libice-dev libsm-dev libxaw7-dev \
    libxcomposite-dev libxcursor-dev libxdamage-dev libxext-dev libxfixes-dev \
    libxi-dev libxinerama-dev libxkbfile-dev libxmu-dev libxmuu-dev libxpm-dev \
    libxrandr-dev libxrender-dev libxres-dev libxss-dev libxt-dev libxtst-dev \
    libxv-dev libxxf86vm-dev libxcb-render0-dev libxcb-render-util0-dev \
    libxcb-xkb-dev libxcb-icccm4-dev libxcb-image0-dev libxcb-keysyms1-dev \
    libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-shape0-dev libxcb-sync-dev libxcb-xfixes0-dev \
    libxcb-xinerama0-dev libxcb-dri3-dev uuid-dev libxcb-cursor-dev libxcb-util-dev \
    wget liblqr-1-0-dev sudo curl procps \
    clang-format-18 \

You mean like RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \ a_package \ b_package \ c_package \ ... one package per line in alphabetical order and so on? — U880D
– U880D, Commented Oct 1 at 8:20
@U880D yes exactly. Alphabetical order is not a requirement though — glades
– glades, Commented Oct 2 at 5:52

lcheylus · Accepted Answer · 2025-10-02 07:44:19Z

1

I could use sed with regexp to replace each space by \<CR> between each package in your list.

sed -E 's/^(\s)*//; s/ / \\\n/g;' Dockerfile

s/^(\s)*//: remove all leading spaces
s/ / \\\n/g: replace all spaces by \<CR>

answered Oct 2 at 7:44

lcheylus

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