Deleting (Only) First Blank Line in File

[Rouben Rostamian]

In article <1651 at fallst.UUCP> tkevans at fallst.UUCP (Tim Evans) writes:
>Can someone help me to delete the _first_ occurring blank line of a file
>(whereever it occurs) without deleting subsequent ones?

Here are two solutions using awk.  In both cases it is assumed that the
command is executed as a script, and $1 denotes the input file.

Solution 1:

awk < $1 'BEGIN{RS=""}
     { if (NR <= 2 )
           print $0;
       else
           print "\n" $0;
     }'

Solution 2:   Note: Here X denotes a character which does not occur in the
input file.  Replace with a more suitable character.  A control character,
such as ^A, may be a good choice.

awk < $1 'BEGIN{RS=""} {print $0; ORS=""; RS="X"}'

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