Delete Multiple lines in Multiple files

A Former User

Hello.

I’m new to this forum and if this has been answered before then I apologize.

I’m looking to delete about 25 lines in multiple txt-files, and I’m wondering if this is something Notepad++ can do?

I’m a newbie when it comes to RegEx, and may need a bit of walkthrough.

I hope someone can help me.

Thanks in advance.

Scott Sumner

@Tanja-Corell

Welcome. Well, you need to be more specific about which 25 lines…what describes them… Only then (and possibly after some back-and-forth about your description of these lines to nail down something that a regex specification can be built from) will anyone be able to help you.

A Former User

The txt in the lines are not the same in any of the files, but here’s an example of what I wanted to delete.

Amphibious Rescue

by Amilyn

Category: Early Edition
Genre: Drama, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2015-01-02 07:22:45
Rating: K+
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936531/1/
Author URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/29600/Amilyn
Summary: The paper wants Gary to save a car wreck victim, stop a gang fight, and prevent a tragedy on a zoo field trip for visually impaired kids. No warnings apply.

I hope this makes sense.

Scott Sumner

@Tanja-Corell

There needs to be a discernible pattern to your data that you need to define; we can’t guess because we aren’t in your brain and can’t know what you are getting at.

So a valid thing for you to say might be:
The lines I need to delete always start with a title line, followed by an empty line, followed by a line that starts with “by” and a space and a name, followed by a blank line, then a bunch of lines with other data, and lastly a line that starts with “Summary” , which is the last line of the group to delete.

Something like that would be a starting point for offering up some advice on how to solve your problem.

A Former User

I did say I was new, and I didn’t know how to express what I wanted done.

Thank you for the correction.

The lines I need to delete always start with a title line, followed by an empty line, followed by a line that starts with “by” and a space and a name, followed by a blank line, then a bunch of lines with other data, and lastly a line that starts with “Summary” , which is the last line of the group to delete.

Can anyone help me?

Claudia Frank

@Tanja-Corell

still not 100% clear to me.
Does this mean that, from your example, you have this

Amphibious Rescue

by Amilyn

Category: Early Edition
Genre: Drama, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2015-01-02 07:22:45
Rating: K+
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936531/1/
Author URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/29600/Amilyn
Summary: The paper wants Gary to save a car wreck victim, stop a gang fight, and prevent a tragedy on a zoo field trip for visually impaired kids. No warnings apply.

and want to get that

Category: Early Edition
Genre: Drama, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2015-01-02 07:22:45
Rating: K+
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936531/1/
Author URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/29600/Amilyn

Could it be that this pattern occurs more often in one file like

Amphibious Rescue

by Amilyn

Category: Early Edition
Genre: Drama, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2015-01-02 07:22:45
Rating: K+
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936531/1/
Author URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/29600/Amilyn
Summary: The paper wants Gary to save a car wreck victim, stop a gang fight, and prevent a tragedy on a zoo field trip for visually impaired kids. No warnings apply.

Amphibious Rescue2

by Amilyn2

Category: Early Edition
Genre: Drama, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2015-01-02 07:22:45
Rating: K+
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936531/1/
Author URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/29600/Amilyn
Summary: The paper wants Gary to save a car wreck victim, stop a gang fight, and prevent a tragedy on a zoo field trip for visually impaired kids. No warnings apply.

Another title3

by SomeoneElse

Category: Early Edition
Genre: Drama, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-25
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2015-01-02 07:22:45
Rating: K+
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,041
Publisher: www.fanfiction.net
Story URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6936531/1/
Author URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/29600/Amilyn
Summary: and some different summary etc…

Cheers
Claudia

A Former User

I have 20.000+ txt-files in which I would like to delete everything from the first line to the summary line, and keep the rest of the txt.

Scott Sumner

It appears the OP has undergone an identity crisis…no matter…

OP:

Firstly, I encourage if not demand you make a complete backup copy of your entire original file set…Whew!, now nothing that follows is my fault! :-)

So, this could work, if I have a good understanding of the “spec” on what is needed:

Find what: (?s).+?\RSummary:[^\r\n]+\R(.+)
Replace with: \1
Search mode: Regular expression

Very high-level summary of what happens with the find and replace:
From the start of file (in a Replace in Files operation) match a string of any characters followed by a line-ending with “Summary:” immediately after; continue matching through (and including) the line-ending of the “Summary:” line. At that point, grab the contents of the remainder of the file and remember it. At replace time, substitute what was remembered (everything after the “Summary:” line) for the contents of the entire file. This effectively deletes the desired lines.

For the regex experts out there reading this, I DID try some things with the \A anchor (for start-of-file matching), but I recall reading something from @guy038 on a bug with \A in Notepad++'s regex engine, and my testing bore out that there is a problem with it.