Delete specific line from a text file?

If the line you want to delete is based on the content of the line:

string line = null;
string line_to_delete = "the line i want to delete";

using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader("C:\\input")) {
    using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter("C:\\output")) {
        while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null) {
            if (String.Compare(line, line_to_delete) == 0)
                continue;

            writer.WriteLine(line);
        }
    }
}

Or if it is based on line number:

string line = null;
int line_number = 0;
int line_to_delete = 12;

using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader("C:\\input")) {
    using (StreamWriter writer = new StreamWriter("C:\\output")) {
        while ((line = reader.ReadLine()) != null) {
            line_number++;

            if (line_number == line_to_delete)
                continue;

            writer.WriteLine(line);
        }
    }
}

One way to do it if the file is not very big is to load all the lines into an array:

string[] lines = File.ReadAllLines("filename.txt");
string[] newLines = RemoveUnnecessaryLine(lines);
File.WriteAllLines("filename.txt", newLines);

The best way to do this is to open the file in text mode, read each line with ReadLine(), and then write it to a new file with WriteLine(), skipping the one line you want to delete.

There is no generic delete-a-line-from-file function, as far as I know.


Hope this simple and short code will help.

List linesList = File.ReadAllLines("myFile.txt").ToList();            
linesList.RemoveAt(0);
File.WriteAllLines("myFile.txt"), linesList.ToArray());

OR use this

public void DeleteLinesFromFile(string strLineToDelete)
    {
        string strFilePath = "Provide the path of the text file";
        string strSearchText = strLineToDelete;
        string strOldText;
        string n = "";
        StreamReader sr = File.OpenText(strFilePath);
        while ((strOldText = sr.ReadLine()) != null)
        {
            if (!strOldText.Contains(strSearchText))
            {
                n += strOldText + Environment.NewLine;
            }
        }
        sr.Close();
        File.WriteAllText(strFilePath, n);
    }

Tags:

C#

Text Files