Re: Refilling paragraphs to remove hard returns?

["B. T. Raven" <nihil@nihilo.net>]

Marc Mientki wrote:
> Am 05.05.2010 13:50, schrieb Jesse Sheidlower:
>> I imagine this is a common problem, so I don't know why I'm
>> having so much trouble finding an answer.
>>
>> Suppose I have a text document that I've worked on in
>> text-mode. It is filled using the usual fill tools, so it
>> wraps at 72 characters, with a hard return after each line.
>> Paragraphs are separated by an extra hard return; there's no
>> other indentation.
>>
>> I now need to give this document to someone who wants to work
>> on it in a word processor, who complains that there are hard
>> returns after every line. What's the easy way to remove these?
> 
> Some way may be unfill-region, that I found here at NG some years
> ago:
> 
> (defun unfill-region (start end)
>   "Make all START to END a single line."
>   (interactive "*r")
>   (save-excursion
>     (goto-char end)
>     (while
>         (progn (goto-char (point-at-bol)) (< start (point)))
>       (delete-indentation))))
> 
> 
> But for long texts I use simply fill-paragraph or
> fill-individual-paragraphs on whole text (buffer is in
> text-mode, no longlines-mode is active). The result is
> one lines per paragraph.
> 
> regards
> Marc
> 

These also work (with the help of a large magic number). I don't know if
it's better practice to use interactive "r" and start, end or point and
mark:

(defun unfill-paragraph () ;; bound to C-x M-q
  "Do the opposite of fill-paragraph; stuff all lines in the current
paragraph into a single long line."
  (interactive)
  (let ((fill-column 90002000))
    (fill-paragraph nil)))

(defun unfill-region () ;; bound to C-x s-q
  "Do the opposite of fill-region; stuff all paragraphs in the current
region into long lines."
  (interactive)
  (let ((fill-column 90002000))
    (fill-region (point) (mark))))