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ephbaum/find-duplicate-lines-and-delete-vim.md

Last active June 23, 2023 05:32
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A vim command that will take a list in a buffer and find & remove 1 (or more) duplicate lines (instead of using `:sort u`
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find-duplicate-lines-and-delete-vim.md 
:g/^\(.*\)\n\1$/d
  • :g: The global (g) command in Vim, performs a certain action on lines that match a given pattern.
  • /^: This symbol denotes the start of a line.
  • \( and \): These parentheses are used for grouping in regex. Everything between \( and \) is treated as a single group. This group can be referenced later.
  • .*: The dot (.) stands for any character except a newline. The asterisk (*) is a quantifier, meaning "zero or more of the preceding element". So, .* matches any string, including an empty string.
  • \n: This represents a newline character.
  • \1: This is a backreference to the first (and only) group that we defined earlier. In this case, it refers to the exact string that was matched inside the \( and \).
  • $: This symbol denotes the end of a line.
  • /d: The d command deletes the lines that match the given pattern.

In summary, the regular expression :g/^\(.*\)\n\1$/d performs the following operation:

  • It looks for lines in a text that are immediately followed by an identical line.
  • If such pairs of identical lines are found, both lines are deleted.

OR

:%sort u
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