Question

How would you turn this:

Dear Fred



How are you?






Regards
John

Into this:

Dear Fred

How are you?

Regards
John

Note: Single and double breaks are allowed, but no more than that. For example, we want to go from:

"Dear Fred\n\n\n\nHow are you?\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegards\nJohn"

to

"Dear Fred\n\nHow are you?\n\nRegards\nJohn"

But should also work for “\r\n”.

Answer 1

Something like this?

s.gsub /(\r?\n){3,}/, '\1\1'

Seems to work with your example at least:

irb(main):060:0> s
=> "Dear Fred\n\n\n\nHow are you?\n\n\n\n\n\n\nRegards\nJohn"
irb(main):061:0> s.gsub /(\r?\n){3,}/, '\1\1'
=> "Dear Fred\n\nHow are you?\n\nRegards\nJohn"