Remove empty lines in text using Visual Studio

Question

How to remove empty lines in Visual Studio?

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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.

Answer 3

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.

Answer 4

Tested in VS 2012 to allow for pure line feeds.

^\s*$\n 

hth

Answer 5

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