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    • ?
      A Former User
      last edited by

      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 SumnerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Scott SumnerS
        Scott Sumner @A Former User
        last edited by

        @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.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • ?
          A Former User
          last edited by

          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 SumnerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Scott SumnerS
            Scott Sumner @A Former User
            last edited by

            @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.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • ?
              A Former User
              last edited by

              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 FrankC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Claudia FrankC
                Claudia Frank @A Former User
                last edited by

                @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

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • ?
                  A Former User
                  last edited by

                  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.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • Scott SumnerS
                    Scott Sumner
                    last edited by

                    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.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
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