Search for section of text and delete.

General
1

Apologies if this information is elsewhere in the forum, I couldn’t find it.

I’d like to know how to search for a section of text in a file that starts with a certain phrase and ends with another and delete them and everything in between.

Example.

#beginning phrase
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah
#ending phrase

2

in a text area?
here is a brute force method

dim s as string="BEGIN YOUR TEXT"
dim t as string="END OF TEXT"

x=instr(ta.text,s)
y=instr(x,ta.text,t)
if x>0 and y>x then 
ta.selstart=x
ta.sellenght(=y-x)+len(t)
ta.seltext=""
3

Load the text file in the TtextArea using the LR Example,
follow Dave advice code,
Save the text from the TextArea.

Go to TextInputStream and TextOutputStream for details.

4 
dim rx as new RegEx
rx.SearchPattern = "#beginning phrase\\b[\\s\\S]*#ending phrase\\b"
rx.ReplacementPattern = ""
rx.Options.ReplaceAllMatches = true
rx.Options.Greedy = false

s = rx.Replace( s )
5

Dave, you didn’t define all your variables, so I wasn’t sure how to proceed with a test.

Kem, I tried your method but couldn’t get it to work. Here’s my code.

[code] Dim dlg As New OpenDialog
dlg.ActionButtonCaption = “Select”
dim f as FolderItem
Dim t as TextInputStream

dlg.Title = “Choose File”

Dim docType as New FileType
docType.Name = “Files”
dlg.Filter=docType
dlg.MultiSelect=True
dlg.InitialDirectory=SpecialFolder.Desktop
f = dlg.ShowModal

If f = Nil Then
return
End

t = TextInputStream.Open(f)
dim s as string

dim rx as new RegEx
rx.SearchPattern = “#Start\b[\s\S]*#Finish\b”
rx.ReplacementPattern = “”
rx.Options.ReplaceAllMatches = true
rx.Options.Greedy = false

s = rx.Replace( s )

t.Close[/code]

6

That code never assigns the text within the file to the variable s.

t = TextInputStream.Open(f)
dim s as string = t.ReadAll
t.Close

dim rx ...
...
7

I assumed you were experienced enough to have figured that bit out… sorry that I was incorrect

8

Thank you Kem! This worked perfectly! You rock!