Delete lines in multiple text/DAT files that contain specific characters

Adam Bowsky

I have 730+ DAT files that contain lines of text that I need to delete from all of them. An example is below. I only used 3 lines, but some files contain over 1000 lines.

   1CONT-15507900000    00000000
   1N90-SS9035X         00000000
   1BFG-89442           00000000

I need to delete the complete line that contains the text “N90-”. Please note that there is spacing preceding the text, and the spacing between the text and zeros cannot change. Also, the number preceding the text changes in each file, so the only constant is the “N90-”.

I tried Googling it, but could not find what I needed. I heard there was a way to do it with Notepad++, but I was unsuccessful.

Alan Kilborn

@Adam-Bowsky

You could use a Search > Mark... operation to bookmark lines containing N90-. Then delete the bookmarked lines using Search > Bookmark > Remove Bookmarked Lines.

There are other ways as well.

Adam Bowsky

I think that only works in a single file at a time… there is no option to do that in the Find in Files tab. I am a novice, sorry.

supasillyass

@Adam-Bowsky

Search
Find in Files…
Search Mode: Regular expression
Find what: \r\n[ ]*.N90-.*00000000$ (Windows EOL)
Replace with: (empty string)
Set file filters and directory as appropriate
Replace in Files

Alan Kilborn

@Adam-Bowsky

Oh, sorry I missed the multi-file aspect of your question! Must not be my day.

Adam Bowsky

@supasillyass It worked! thank you!

Adam Bowsky

@supasillyass It worked for files that had 1 digit in front of the text. Some of the files have 2, 3, and 4 digits, EX:

11N90-SS9035X 00000000
311N90-SS9035X 00000000
6001N90-SS9035X 00000000

Unfortunately, I am not sure of what the switches do, or if there is a different variance I need to use.

\r\n[ ]*.N90-.*00000000$

Michael Vincent

@Adam-Bowsky

How about:

\r\n\s+\d{1,4}N90-.*\s+00000000$

The \r\n matches a windows carriage return, line feed. If you’re not using Windows (CR/LF) but rather Unix (LF), just remove the ‘\r’.

The \s+ means match white space at least once but get as many as possible (you said there is preceding space on each line).

The \d{1,4} means match a digit at least once, but not more than 4 times - you said “Some of the files have 2, 3, and 4 digits”.

The N90- is self explanatory

The .* means match any character (.) or or more times (*).

The \s+ is spacing again before all the trailing '0’s, which themselves are self-explanatory.

Finally, the $ is stop at the end of the line.

Michael Vincent

Using PREGGER:

PS VinsWorldcom@:~> pregger "/\r\n\s+\d{1,4}N90-.*\s+00000000$/"
The regular expression:

(?-imsx:\r\n\s+\d{1,4}N90-.*\s+00000000$)

matches as follows:

NODE                     EXPLANATION
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(?-imsx:                 group, but do not capture (case-sensitive)
                         (with ^ and $ matching normally) (with . not
                         matching \n) (matching whitespace and #
                         normally):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \r                       '\r' (carriage return)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \n                       '\n' (newline)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \s+                      whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or
                           more times (matching the most amount
                           possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \d{1,4}                  digits (0-9) (between 1 and 4 times
                           (matching the most amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  N90-                     'N90-'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  .*                       any character except \n (0 or more times
                           (matching the most amount possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  \s+                      whitespace (\n, \r, \t, \f, and " ") (1 or
                           more times (matching the most amount
                           possible))
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  00000000                 '00000000'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  $                        before an optional \n, and the end of the
                           string
----------------------------------------------------------------------
)                        end of grouping
----------------------------------------------------------------------

PS VinsWorldcom@:~>

supasillyass

@Adam-Bowsky

The dot indicated matches a single character:

\r\n[ ]*.N90-.*00000000$
        ^

So change it to match a string of digits:

\r\n[ ]*[0-9]*N90-.*00000000$
        ^^^^^^

There’s also an edge case not matched where the first line has N90-, so follow up with: ^[ ]*[0-9]*N90-.*00000000\r\n

Adam Bowsky

@Michael-Vincent thank you! I believe this worked correctly. 1 question… “the match a digit at least once”… does this include preceding zeros? For example, if the line had looked like this: 00001N90-SS9035X? If so, would I change \d{1,4} to \d{1,5}?

Michael Vincent

@Adam-Bowsky said:

For example, if the line had looked like this: 00001N90-SS9035X? If so, would I change \d{1,4} to \d{1,5}?

It does not include preceding zeros by default. Zeros (0) are numbers (digits) so they would count towards the 4 maximum ( { …, 4} ). You’re correct in that if you had 4 leading zeros, then \d{1,5} would match it.

I like to be precise in my RegEx (as precise as possible) to not catch anything I shouldn’t. I’d rather be cautious than aggressive when doing a bulk replace like this. You could just use \d+ which would match at least 1 and as many digits in a row (similar to the \s+ we’ve been using).

Cheers.

Adam Bowsky

@supasillyass thanks!

Adam Bowsky

@Michael-Vincent thanks again!

Adam Bowsky

Re: Delete lines in multiple text/DAT files that contain specific characters

Hello,

I have been using this process since you were kind enough to help me, and just notices that I am running into a problem with this expression: \r\n\s+\d{1,4}N90-.*\s+00000000$. in addition to deleting the line that has the N90- with a , it is also deleting the line above it. For example, the line above was deleted in addition to the line that I wanted to delete. This is happening on every file where N90- is present. Do you have any idea why this is happening?

      10DTP-1040K           00000000  This should not have been deleted, but was.
      10N90-SS7784X         00000000 This was deleted correctly.

Adam Bowsky

@Michael-Vincent

Hello,

I have been using this process since you were kind enough to help me, and just notices that I am running into a problem with this expression: \r\n\s+\d{1,4}N90-.*\s+00000000$. in addition to deleting the line that has the N90- with a , it is also deleting the line above it. For example, the line above was deleted in addition to the line that I wanted to delete. This is happening on every file where N90- is present. Do you have any idea why this is happening?

  10DTP-1040K           00000000  This should not have been deleted, but was.
  10N90-SS7784X         00000000 This was deleted correctly.

guy038

Hello, @adam-bowsky, @michael-vincent, @supasillyass and All,

Personally, I would use the following regex S/R, which should work in all the discussed cases !

I simply assume that the N90- string, with this exact case, is preceded with, at least, one digit !

SEARCH (?-si)^\h*\d+N90-.*\R?

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Of course, the Regular expression search mode is selected and the Wrap around option is ticked

Give a try !

I’ll give you some explanations when everything is right ;-))

Best Regards

guy038