Remove entries from second file

Michael Rebusify

Using Notepad ++ I have one main file 1.txt that has 10,000 unique URL’s in it. In my second file called 2.txt I have a list of 2000 URL’s. What I need to do is take those 2000 URL’s that are in 2.txt and have those removed from 1.txt which will essentially give me 8000 URL’s in 1.txt.

Goal: The 1.txt has 10,000 URL’s which contain 2000 that I need to remove. The 2000 that needs to be removed are in 2.txt.

Is it possible to run some kind of search/replace to perform this actions? Thanks in advance!

Terry R

@Michael-Rebusify said in Remove entries from second file:

Goal: The 1.txt has 10,000 URL’s which contain 2000 that I need to remove.

Welcome to the NPP forum.

From the little you have explained it may be possible to use a regular expression (regex) to remove the 2000 unwanted URLs. However you will need to provide some more detail and possibly an excerpt from the 2 files if possible.

Does the URL list in file #2 only contain 1 of each URL?
Are the URLs in both files contained on lines by themselves or are they embedded in sentences or other data.
Would you be okay with combining the contents of both files, then after sorting (provided URLs on lines by themselves) use a regex to remove any lines where 2 consecutive lines are duplicated.

That’s how I might do it, proviso is needing to see sample data or at least a dummy representation of your data if actual data sensitive info.

Terry

Michael Rebusify

Hi,

Yes, there are 2000 url’s in 2.text and they are all on a line and unique.
Yes, all on each line.
If I combine by putting all of 2.txt at the bottom of 1.txt then we’d have to remove all that were duplicates. That would remove the initial URL and the second one.

I have to remove 10,000 URL’s but need to keep 2000 of them (2.txt).

Alan Kilborn

So if one considers the data:

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
-------
five
seven

Note that the line of dashes is just there as a visual divider between 2 sections; here the sections could be considered the first, larger file at the top, and the second, smaller file at the bottom. Each section contains unique lines, but obviously there is going to be commonality between the sections.

So a regular expression replacement operation using ^(.+?\R)(?=(?s).*?\1) as the search expression and an empty replace expression seems to remove the content of the bottom section that also appears in the top section, leaving the bottom section intact:

one
two
three
four
six
eight
nine
ten
-------
five
seven

So, in theory, if one combines into one file the 10000 line section from the first file (placed at the top in the new file) and the 2000 line section (placed at the bottom in the new file) and runs the above replacement on the new file, it should do the job?

Obviously, when the operation is complete, copy the top 8000 lines of the file to whatever file you need it in.

Michael Rebusify

Thank you!

guy038

Hello, @michael-rebusify, @terry-r, @alan-kilborn and All,

I was waiting the Terry’s reply, first, but, in the meanwhile, I already imagined the suitable regex, a bit longer, which could handle special cases as, for instance, duplicate lines in the first part, before the separation line and no similar line in the second part, which, obviously, should not be considered !

As you replied to @michael-rebusify, and now that we assume that no duplicate line exist, in each section, here is my shortened solution :

SEARCH (?-s)^(.+)\R(?s)(?=.*^\1(\R|\z))|^%%%.+

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

Let’s examine, Alan, the differences with your search regex ^(.+?\R)(?=(?s).*?\1) :

Firstly, note that I added the alternative ^%%%.+, which grasps, after the first part, all the second section from the separation line, included, which must be deleted too !
Secondly, I changed the \1 syntax with ^\1(\R|\z), which forces a line, in the first section to have an exact equivalent in the second section, even if the last line of the 2nd section does not end with a line-break. See the example, below, to easily pin down the differences ;-))
Thirdly, it was necessary to place the \R syntax, outside the group 1, to be able to include the \z assertion
Fourthly, in order that my second alternative has the implicit (?s) modifier, I needed to place the prior (?s) before the positive look-ahead structure !

So, let’s consider a new N++ tab containing :

All the File_1 contents
A line of, at least, 3 percent characters
All the File_2 contents, with the last line possibly without any line-break

Here is an example data :

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
twenty-two
%%%%%%%%%%
twenty-two
five
nineteen
seven

After the regex S/R (?-s)^(.+)\R(?s)(?=.*^\1(\R|\z))|^%%%.+, you should get the expected contents of the new File_1 :

one
two
three
four
six
eight
nine
ten

With your version, Alan, ^(.+?\R)(?=(?s).*?\1), assuming the second seven word is the very end of file, you would have obtained, after replacement :

one
three
four
six
eight
nine
ten
%%%%%%%%%%
twenty-two
five
nineteen
seven

Best regards,

guy038

Alan Kilborn

Sometimes I think we run the risk of “oversolving” and confusing an OP. Oftentimes it is best not to read extra things into a specification, especially when the original is described very well.

guy038

Hi, @alan-kilborn,

I totally agree with your statement. Nevertheless, your regex would be more exact, just adding one more ^ symbol, giving :

^(.+?\R)(?=(?s).*?^\1)

Test it against the very simple text, below :

two
---
twenty-two

The version \1 would wrongly select the word two, where as the version ^\1 correctly does not find any occurrence ;-))

Cheers,

guy038

Terry R

@guy038 said in Remove entries from second file:

I was waiting the Terry’s reply, first

@guy038 you don’t need to await my reply first. Sure I had intended to give a regex answer but other matters got in the way. I knew that those questions needed to be asked in order to get a full and correct understanding of the problem.

My regex would have been similar, although given the lookahead can be problematic with large amounts of data I try to avoid that situation like the plague. I would have simply combined both files and sorted, thus putting 2 “same” lines together and used a regex to remove both. If ordering was needed to be kept line numbering would have been an option although it creates more steps overall.

Good thing is the result the OP was seeking has been achieved and that’s all that matters.

Cheers
Terry

Alan Kilborn

@guy038

\1 would wrongly select

Yes. Perhaps I should have invented some dummy url data instead of a simple number-to-word list; if I had done so there would not have been any entry that would have been a subset of another entry, like “two” is a subset of “twenty-two”. Again, I was considering the OP’s well-stated problem case.

Ninon_1977

@Michael-Rebusify said in Remove entries from second file:

0 URL’s which contain 2000 that I need to remove. The 2000 that needs to be removed are in 2.txt.
Is it possible to run some kind of search/replace to perform this actions? Thanks in advance!

Hi Michael,
First I would copy your file, then I would record a macro where you delete every second row.
You can then run the macro till the end of the file…
Does that help you?

guy038

Hello, @terry-r and All,

I said :

I was waiting the Terry’s reply, first,…

Because I think it is more fair to let the first guy, helping the OP, to develop his solution ;-)) Then, you can jump into the discussion, proposing alternate solutions, too !

Besides, I know that I’m really too eager to give my regex solutions and, very often, I must prevent some people from helping their own solutions ;-))

Now, regarding your solution, you’re right about it : best to avoid large amounts of data inside the look-ahead structure ;-))

So, from the short example data, given in my previous post :

one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
nine
ten
twenty-two
%%%%%%%%%%
twenty-two
five
nineteen
seven

First, using the Edit > Column Editor... option, at column 12 or more, we would get :

one            01
two            02
three          03
four           04
five           05
six            06
seven          07
eight          08
nine           09
ten            10
twenty-two     11
%%%%%%%%%%     12
twenty-two     13
five           14
nineteen       15
seven          16

And , after the Edit > Line Operations > Sort Lines Lexicographically Ascending option, we have :

%%%%%%%%%%     12
eight          08
five           05
five           14
four           04
nine           09
nineteen       15
one            01
seven          07
seven          16
six            06
ten            10
three          03
twenty-two     11
twenty-two     13
two            02

Now, using the following regex S/R :

SEARCH (?-s)^(.+)\x20+\d+\R\1\x20+\d+\R? OR (?-s)^(.+)(\x20+\d+\R?)\1(?2)

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

We are left with :

%%%%%%%%%%     12
eight          08
four           04
nine           09
nineteen       15
one            01
six            06
ten            10
three          03
two            02

Then, moving back the numbers from the end to the beginning of line and adding a space column, with the column mode selection, we would obtain :

12 %%%%%%%%%%     
08 eight          
04 four           
09 nine           
15 nineteen       
01 one            
06 six            
10 ten            
03 three          
02 two

And, after a last ascending sort, we have :

01 one            
02 two            
03 three          
04 four           
06 six            
08 eight          
09 nine           
10 ten            
12 %%%%%%%%%%     
15 nineteen

Finally, after processing this last regex S/R, we get our expected text, removing leading numbers and trailing spaces as well as anything from the separation line till the very end of file :

SEARCH (?s)^\d+\h*%%%+.+|^\d+\h*|\h+$

REPLACE Leave EMPTY

one
two
three
four
six
eight
nine
ten

Cheers,

guy038