Delete lines in multiple text/DAT files that contain specific characters
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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 00000000I 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.
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You could use a
Search>Mark...operation to bookmark lines containingN90-. Then delete the bookmarked lines usingSearch>Bookmark>Remove Bookmarked Lines.There are other ways as well.
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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.
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- Search
- Find in Files…
- Search Mode: Regular expression
- Find what:
\r\n[ ]*.N90-.*00000000$(Windows EOL) - Replace with: (empty string)
- Set file filters and directory as appropriate
- Replace in Files
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Oh, sorry I missed the multi-file aspect of your question! Must not be my day.
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@supasillyass It worked! thank you!
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@supasillyass It worked for files that had 1 digit in front of the text. Some of the files have 2, 3, and 4 digits, EX:
11N90-SS9035X 00000000
311N90-SS9035X 00000000
6001N90-SS9035X 00000000Unfortunately, I am not sure of what the switches do, or if there is a different variance I need to use.
\r\n[ ]*.N90-.*00000000$
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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.
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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@:~> -
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 -
@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}?
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@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.
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@supasillyass thanks!
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@Michael-Vincent thanks again!
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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$. in addition to deleting the line that has the N90- with a , it is also deleting the line above it. For example, the line above was deleted in addition to the line that I wanted to delete. This is happening on every file where N90- is present. Do you have any idea why this is happening?
10DTP-1040K 00000000 This should not have been deleted, but was. 10N90-SS7784X 00000000 This was deleted correctly. -
Hello,
I have been using this process since you were kind enough to help me, and just notices that I am running into a problem with this expression: \r\n\s+\d{1,4}N90-.*\s+00000000$. 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. -
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 EMPTYOf course, the
Regular expressionsearch mode is selected and theWrap aroundoption is tickedGive a try !
I’ll give you some explanations when everything is right ;-))
Best Regards
guy038
