How do I convert multi public key into a single line?

Question

I'm trying to make a txt file with a generated key into 1 line. example:

<----- key start ----->
lkdjasdjskdjaskdjasdkj
skdhfjlkdfjlkdsfjsdlfk
kldshfjlsdhjfksdhfksdj
jdhsfkjsdhfksdjfhskdfh
jhdfkjsdhfkjsdhfkjsdhf
<----- key stop ----->

I want it to look like:

lkdjasdjskdjaskdjasdkjskdhfjlkdfjlkdsfjsdlfkkldshfjlsdhjfksdhfksdjjdhsfkjsdhfksdjfhskdfhjhdfkjsdhfkjsdhfkjsdhf

Notice I also want the lines <----- key start -----> and <----- key stop -----> removed. How can I do this? Would this be done with sed?

score 43 · Answer 1 · answered May 18 '11 at 20:44

43

tr -d '\n' < key.txt

Found on http://linux.dsplabs.com.au/rmnl-remove-new-line-characters-tr-awk-perl-sed-c-cpp-bash-python-xargs-ghc-ghci-haskell-sam-ssam-p65/

answered May 18 '11 at 20:44

Luke

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1

im also trying to remove the lines <----- key start -----> and <----- key stop -----> which is why i thought sed would work better.. – john May 18 '11 at 20:47
don't have access to console right now. I have found this however http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/programming-9/delete-first-and-last-lines-of-a-file-586069/ Sorry didn't see that last line. – Luke May 18 '11 at 20:54

Axel Bregnsbo · Answer 2 · 2017-09-16T13:43:18.223

19

To convert multi line output to a single space separated line, use

tr '\n' ' ' < key.txt

I know this does not answer the detailed question. But it is one possible answer to the title. I needed this answer and my google search found this question.

edited Sep 16 '17 at 13:43

answered Feb 26 '17 at 13:09

Axel Bregnsbo

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score 7 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 08 '19 at 09:52

7

tail -n +2 key.txt | head -n -1 | tr -d '\n'

Tail to remove the first line, head to remove the last line and tr to remove newlines.

answered Jul 08 '19 at 09:52

Javier Yáñez

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score 6 · Answer 4 · answered May 18 '11 at 21:28

If you're looking for everything you asked for in one sed, I have this...

sed -n '1h;2,$H;${g;s/\n//g;s/<----- key $start\|stop$ ----->//g;p}' key.txt

But it's not exactly easily readable :) If you don't mind piping a couple of commands, you could use the piped grep, tr, sed, etc. suggestions in the rest of the answers you got.

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered May 18 '11 at 20:47

3

An easy way would be to use cat file.txt | tr -d '\n'

answered May 18 '11 at 20:47

kuriouscoder

5,394
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im also trying to remove the lines <----- key start -----> and <----- key stop -----> which is why i thought sed would work better. – john May 18 '11 at 20:48

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 27 '17 at 00:15

2

This might work for you (GNU sed):

sed -r '/key start/{:a;N;/key stop/!ba;s/^[^\n]*\n(.*)\n.*/\1/;s/\n//g}' file

Gather up lines between key start and key stop. Then remove the first and last lines and delete any newlines.

answered Feb 27 '17 at 00:15

potong

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score 2 · Answer 7 · answered May 18 '11 at 20:56

2

grep '^[^<]' test.txt | tr -d '\n'

answered May 18 '11 at 20:56

Daniel Haley

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score 1 · Answer 8 · answered May 18 '11 at 20:44

In vim, it's just :%s/^M//

I use this all the time to generate comma separated lists from lines. For sed or awk, check out the many solutions at this link:

http://www.unix.com/shell-programming-scripting/35107-remove-line-break.html

Example:

paste -s -d',' tmpfile | sed 's/,/, /g'

score 1 · Answer 9 · answered May 19 '11 at 02:57

1

grep  -v -e "key start" -e "key stop" /PATH_TO/key | tr -d '\n'

answered May 19 '11 at 02:57

freethinker

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score 1 · Answer 10 · answered May 19 '11 at 13:25

1

awk '/ key (start|stop) / {next} {printf("%s", $0)} END {print ""}' filename

answered May 19 '11 at 13:25

glenn jackman

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score 1 · Answer 11 · answered Oct 06 '22 at 15:35

1

Every other answer mentioned here converts the key to a single line, but the result that we get is not a valid key and hence I was running into problems. If you also have the same issue, please try

awk -v ORS='\\n' '1'  key.txt/file-name

Credit: https://gist.github.com/bafxyz/de4c94c0912f59969bd27b47069eeac0

answered Oct 06 '22 at 15:35

Surya

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While your credit is correct, the original credit goes to https://www.kevinsimper.dk/posts/how-to-convert-privatekey-into-singleline – Anshu Prateek Apr 14 '23 at 23:47
maybe, i don't know what `bafxyz` referred tho. I referred him :) – Surya Apr 19 '23 at 13:16

score 0 · Answer 12 · answered May 19 '11 at 14:44

You may use man 1 ed to join lines as well:

str='
aaaaa
<----- key start ----->
lkdjasdjskdjaskdjasdkj
skdhfjlkdfjlkdsfjsdlfk
kldshfjlsdhjfksdhfksdj
jdhsfkjsdhfksdjfhskdfh
jhdfkjsdhfkjsdhfkjsdhf
<----- key stop ----->
bbbbb
'


# for in-place file editing use "ed -s file" and replace ",p" with "w"
# cf. http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/howto/edit-ed
cat <<-'EOF' | sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/ *$//' | ed -s <(echo "$str")
   H
   /<----- key start ----->/+1,/<----- key stop ----->/-1j
   /<----- key start ----->/d
   /<----- key stop ----->/d
   ,p
   q
EOF


# print the joined lines to stdout only
cat <<-'EOF' | sed -e 's/^ *//' -e 's/ *$//' | ed -s <(echo "$str")
   H
   /<----- key start ----->/+1,/<----- key stop ----->/-1jp
   q
EOF

How do I convert multi public key into a single line?

12 Answers12