Remove ":" and join lines in outline file

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have a vim outliner file like this:

Title   
        title 2 
                :Testing now
                :testing 2
                :testing 3
        title 3 
                :testing
                :ttt
                :ttg

Is there a way to use a script or command to remove the ":" in front of the the text blocks and join these lines to give this output?

Title   
        title 2 
                Testing now testing 2 testing 3
        title 3 
                testing ttt ttg
2

Try this,

 awk '{if(/:/) {sub(/:/,"");printf "%s",$0}else{printf "\n%s\n",$0}} END {print "\n"}' inputfile
3

Try this:

awk '/:/{if(s){$1=$1};s=s?s FS $0:$0; next}
s{gsub(":", "", s); print s; s=""}1
END{if(s)gsub(":", "", s);print s}
' file
1 Like
4

Try...

 
awk '{ORS=RS}/:/{sub(/:/,"");ORS=" "}1' infile
5

Thanks for the suggestions! This works perfectly as it also removes the extra whitespace between the words.

6 
awk 'END{f(s)}function f(s){if(s)gsub(":",x,s);print s}/:/{if(s){$1=$1};s=((s)?s FS:x)$0;next}s{f(s);s=""}1' file

A spin-out of Franklin solution

7 
awk -F: '/:/{p=(p)?p OFS $2:$1$2;next}p{print p,p=x}1;END{print p}' file
8

Or with Perl -

$
$
$ cat f5
Title
        title 2
                :Testing now
                :testing 2
                :testing 3
        title 3
                :testing
                :ttt
                :ttg
$
$
$ perl -lne 'if(/^(\s*):(.*)$/){if(!$x){printf("%s%s ",$1,$2);$x=1}else{printf("%s ",$2)}}elsif($x){print "\n",$_;$x=0}else{print}END{print}' f5
Title
        title 2
                Testing now testing 2 testing 3
        title 3
                testing ttt ttg
$
$
$

tyler_durden