You can use the following syntax to replace newlines with commas in Bash:
tr '\n' ',' < city_names.txt > new_names.txt
This particular example replaces all newlines with commas in the file named city_names.txt and outputs the results to a new file named new_names.txt.
Note that the tr operator is used to translate or substitute one pattern for another in Bash.
By using the tr operator, we specify that we want all newlines ( \n ) replaced with commas ( , ) instead.
The following example shows how to use this syntax in practice.
Example: How to Replace Newlines with Commas in Bash
Suppose that we have a file saved in the following location on our computer:
- c:/users/bobbi/city_names.txt
The file contains the names of various U.S. cities:
Suppose that we would like to replace each of the newlines in the file with commas instead.
We can use the following syntax to do so:
tr '\n' ',' < c:/users/bobbi/city_names.txt > c:/users/bobbi/new_names.txt
The following screenshot shows how to use this syntax in practice:
If we navigate to where the file is saved on our computer, we can view the contents of the file:
We can see that all of the newlines in the file have been replaced with commas instead.
Each city name is now separated by a comma instead of a newline.
Related Tutorials
The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in Bash:
Bash: How to Replace Text in String
Bash: How to Replace Specific Line in File
Bash: How to Replace Special Characters in String
Bash: How to Replace Multiple Characters in String
