CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
WinBoss
WinBoss

Reputation: 923

Powershell. Remove Specific Line Numbers

We have multiple text files in a folder that needs editing. The text files are Multi-Stage Azure Pipelines as code (.yaml) for Azure DevOps, that we need to update. We have specific line numbers that need to be cut, for example we need to cut out lines 54-68 from 30 files, but keep the rest of the code. An example of such lines:

- stage: DeployWebApps
  variables:
  - group: Environment1
  jobs:
  - job: DeployWebApps
    pool:
      vmImage: 'windows-latest'
    steps:
    - task: AzureFileCopy@3
      displayName: 'Copy ARM Template'
      inputs:
        SourcePath: 'DevOps\IaC\WebApps.json'
        azureSubscription: Development Subscription Service Connection'
        Destination: 'AzureBlob'
        storage: 'xxx'
        ContainerName: 'armtemplates'
        outputStorageUri: 'artifactsLocation'
        outputStorageContainerSasToken: 'artifactsLocationSasToken'
        sasTokenTimeOutInMinutes: '240'

We would like to use the approach I described because line 56:

  - group: Environment1

is different in each file while the rest of the lines are the same. Regex seem to be overkill that is more difficult to write than PowerShell for such case and doesn’t solve the problem of replacing lines in multiple files.

The best approach I found is in an answer here Powershell remove a range of lines from a text file

If the content you want is always on the first 4 lines you can just do this:

(Get-Content C:\file.txt)[0..3] | set-content C:\outfile.txt

This script removes everything except lines 1-4. How can I remove only lines 54-68 instead?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 3689

Answers (3)

js2010
js2010

Reputation: 27423

Here's an odd solution that uses the hidden readcount property returned by get-content.

# get-content c:\file.txt | select *
get-content c:\file.txt | where readcount -notin (54..68) | 
  set-content c:\outfile.txt

Upvotes: 0

AdminOfThings
AdminOfThings

Reputation: 25001

In PowerShell Core (v7+), Select-Object has a -SkipIndex parameter that allows skipping multiple lines using the pipeline.

Get-Content -Path file.txt | Select-Object -SkipIndex (53..67) |
    Set-Content output.txt

Note that -SkipIndex skips the actual index number (starts at 0) rather than the number of lines as required by -Skip.

Upvotes: 1

Mahmoud Moawad
Mahmoud Moawad

Reputation: 763

This can be done as follow:

[string[]]$array = Get-Content -Path C:\file.txt

$array[0..52] + $array[68 ..($array.length -1)] | Set-Content C:\outfile.txt

Upvotes: 3

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