[SOLVED] Delete a paragraph from a file using sed

Issue

I have a markdown file that looks something like this:

markdown.md

# Title1

line 1
line 2
line 3

# Title2

line 1
line 2
line 3

I'd like to be able to delete one of the paragraphs by searching for the title. I would need to delete the title, the following line, and then every subsequent line that is not blank.

The desired output would be:

# Title2

line 1
line 2
line 3

I was doing some reading about using {} to group multiple commands together but I can't seem to quite get the syntax right.

cat markdown.md | sed '/^# Title1.*/,+1d {/^\s*$/d}'

My thinking was this would delete the line beginning with '# Title1', then the following line with ,+1d, then subsequent lines until a blank line, but i see the following error:

sed: 1: "/^# Title1.*/,+1d { ...": extra characters at the end of d command

I've tried a few variations but no luck. Any help would be appreciated!

Solution

This is the kind of sed puzzle that makes me wish for a slightly different tool.

sed -n -e '/Title1/!{p;d;};n;' -e ':a' -e 'n;/./ba'         

Loosely translated: "Don't print anything. If it doesn't contain 'Title1', then all right, print it, then start over with the next line. But if it does contain 'Title1', then grab the next line (which will be blank), enter a loop, and keep grabbing new lines until you come to the next empty line."

Answered By - Beta

Answer Checked By - Marie Seifert (WPSolving Admin)