I have a problem: how can I delete a line from a text file in C#?
This question is related to
c#
text-files
I'd very simply:
Why can't use this? First, create an array:
string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines(openFileDialog1.FileName);
Then look up the line you need to delete and replace it with "" :
lines[x].Replace(lines[x], "");
Done!
string fileIN = @"C:\myTextFile.txt";
string fileOUT = @"C:\myTextFile_Out.txt";
if (File.Exists(fileIN))
{
string[] data = File.ReadAllLines(fileIN);
foreach (string line in data)
if (!line.Equals("my line to remove"))
File.AppendAllText(fileOUT, line);
File.Delete(fileIN);
File.Move(fileOUT, fileIN);
}
I extended what Markus Olsson suggested, and came up with this class that adds multiple search strings and a couple of event:
public static class TextLineRemover
{
public static void RemoveTextLines(IList<string> linesToRemove, string filename, string tempFilename)
{
// Initial values
int lineNumber = 0;
int linesRemoved = 0;
DateTime startTime = DateTime.Now;
// Read file
using (var sr = new StreamReader(filename))
{
// Write new file
using (var sw = new StreamWriter(tempFilename))
{
// Read lines
string line;
while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
lineNumber++;
// Look for text to remove
if (!ContainsString(line, linesToRemove))
{
// Keep lines that does not match
sw.WriteLine(line);
}
else
{
// Ignore lines that DO match
linesRemoved++;
InvokeOnRemovedLine(new RemovedLineArgs { RemovedLine = line, RemovedLineNumber = lineNumber});
}
}
}
}
// Delete original file
File.Delete(filename);
// ... and put the temp file in its place.
File.Move(tempFilename, filename);
// Final calculations
DateTime endTime = DateTime.Now;
InvokeOnFinished(new FinishedArgs {LinesRemoved = linesRemoved, TotalLines = lineNumber, TotalTime = endTime.Subtract(startTime)});
}
private static bool ContainsString(string line, IEnumerable<string> linesToRemove)
{
foreach (var lineToRemove in linesToRemove)
{
if(line.Contains(lineToRemove))
return true;
}
return false;
}
public static event RemovedLine OnRemovedLine;
public static event Finished OnFinished;
public static void InvokeOnFinished(FinishedArgs args)
{
Finished handler = OnFinished;
if (handler != null) handler(null, args);
}
public static void InvokeOnRemovedLine(RemovedLineArgs args)
{
RemovedLine handler = OnRemovedLine;
if (handler != null) handler(null, args);
}
}
public delegate void Finished(object sender, FinishedArgs args);
public class FinishedArgs
{
public int TotalLines { get; set; }
public int LinesRemoved { get; set; }
public TimeSpan TotalTime { get; set; }
}
public delegate void RemovedLine(object sender, RemovedLineArgs args);
public class RemovedLineArgs
{
public string RemovedLine { get; set; }
public int RemovedLineNumber { get; set; }
}
Usage:
TextLineRemover.OnRemovedLine += (o, removedLineArgs) => Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Removed \"{0}\" at line {1}", removedLineArgs.RemovedLine, removedLineArgs.RemovedLineNumber));
TextLineRemover.OnFinished += (o, finishedArgs) => Console.WriteLine(string.Format("{0} of {1} lines removed. Time used: {2}", finishedArgs.LinesRemoved, finishedArgs.TotalLines, finishedArgs.TotalTime.ToString()));
TextLineRemover.RemoveTextLines(new List<string> { "aaa", "bbb" }, fileName, fileName + ".tmp");
To remove an item from a text file, first move all the text to a list and remove whichever item you want. Then write the text stored in the list into a text file:
List<string> quotelist=File.ReadAllLines(filename).ToList();
string firstItem= quotelist[0];
quotelist.RemoveAt(0);
File.WriteAllLines(filename, quotelist.ToArray());
return firstItem;
For very large files I'd do something like this
string tempFile = Path.GetTempFileName();
using(var sr = new StreamReader("file.txt"))
using(var sw = new StreamWriter(tempFile))
{
string line;
while((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
if(line != "removeme")
sw.WriteLine(line);
}
}
File.Delete("file.txt");
File.Move(tempFile, "file.txt");
Update I originally wrote this back in 2009 and I thought it might be interesting with an update. Today you could accomplish the above using LINQ and deferred execution
var tempFile = Path.GetTempFileName();
var linesToKeep = File.ReadLines(fileName).Where(l => l != "removeme");
File.WriteAllLines(tempFile, linesToKeep);
File.Delete(fileName);
File.Move(tempFile, fileName);
The code above is almost exactly the same as the first example, reading line by line and while keeping a minimal amount of data in memory.
A disclaimer might be in order though. Since we're talking about text files here you'd very rarely have to use the disk as an intermediate storage medium. If you're not dealing with very large log files there should be no problem reading the contents into memory instead and avoid having to deal with the temporary file.
File.WriteAllLines(fileName,
File.ReadLines(fileName).Where(l => l != "removeme").ToList());
Note that The .ToList
is crucial here to force immediate execution. Also note that all the examples assume the text files are UTF-8 encoded.
I wrote a method to delete lines from files.
This program uses using System.IO
.
See my code:
void File_DeleteLine(int Line, string Path)
{
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(Path))
{
int Countup = 0;
while (!sr.EndOfStream)
{
Countup++;
if (Countup != Line)
{
using (StringWriter sw = new StringWriter(sb))
{
sw.WriteLine(sr.ReadLine());
}
}
else
{
sr.ReadLine();
}
}
}
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(Path))
{
sw.Write(sb.ToString());
}
}
Remove a block of code from multiple files
To expand on @Markus Olsson's answer, I needed to remove a block of code from multiple files. I had problems with Swedish characters in a core project, so I needed to install System.Text.CodePagesEncodingProvider nuget package and use System.Text.Encoding.GetEncoding(1252) instead of System.Text.Encoding.UTF8.
public static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
var dir = @"C:\Test";
//Get all html and htm files
var files = DirSearch(dir);
foreach (var file in files)
{
RmCode(file);
}
}
catch (Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e.Message);
throw;
}
}
private static void RmCode(string file)
{
string tempFile = Path.GetTempFileName();
using (var sr = new StreamReader(file, Encoding.UTF8))
using (var sw = new StreamWriter(new FileStream(tempFile, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite), Encoding.UTF8))
{
string line;
var startOfBadCode = "<div>";
var endOfBadCode = "</div>";
var deleteLine = false;
while ((line = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
{
if (line.Contains(startOfBadCode))
{
deleteLine = true;
}
if (!deleteLine)
{
sw.WriteLine(line);
}
if (line.Contains(endOfBadCode))
{
deleteLine = false;
}
}
}
File.Delete(file);
File.Move(tempFile, file);
}
private static List<String> DirSearch(string sDir)
{
List<String> files = new List<String>();
try
{
foreach (string f in Directory.GetFiles(sDir))
{
files.Add(f);
}
foreach (string d in Directory.GetDirectories(sDir))
{
files.AddRange(DirSearch(d));
}
}
catch (System.Exception excpt)
{
Console.WriteLine(excpt.Message);
}
return files.Where(s => s.EndsWith(".htm") || s.EndsWith(".html")).ToList();
}
I agree with John Saunders, this isn't really C# specific. However, to answer your question: you basically need to rewrite the file. There are two ways you can do this.
File.ReadAllLines
)List<string>
then remove the line)File.WriteAllLines
) - potentially convert the List<string>
into a string array again using ToArray
That means you have to know that you've got enough memory though. An alternative:
TextReader
/TextWriter
, e.g. with File.OpenText
and File.CreateText
)TextReader.ReadLine
) - if you don't want to delete it, write it to the output file (TextWriter.WriteLine
)using
statements for both, this will happen automatically)Source: Stackoverflow.com