asked on

Parse text file, trim each line, remove carriage returns, add CRLF after delimiter character?

I believe this is a fairly simple question, but unfortunately I have no experience working with text files so I'm asking for help rather than figuring it out myself.

I need to read in a text file (it's going to be 5 megs up to a couple hundred).

I need to do the following with it
1) I need to remove the trailing spaces from each line.
2) Delete all carriage returns and line feeds.
3) Add a Carriage Return/ Line Feed after any instance of "</END??>" where the ?? can be anything.

I believe each line is around 1000 bytes. Speed doesn't really matter.
I mention the byte count since I think this is a large file and should use something like a string buffer no? Not really familiar with anything other than ordinary strings.

I'll gladly bump up the point value for a quick quality solution.

Jaime Olivares

let's assume you read each line into a String object:
Dim line as String

To remove new lines and CRs, use:
line = line.Replace(chr(10).ToString(), "")
line = line.Replace(char(13).ToString(), "")

Then remove trailing spaces
line = line.TrimEnd(null);

about the </END??> issue, you can do it with an algorithm:
Dim i as Integer = 0
Do
i = line.IndexOf("</END", i)
If i < 0 Then Exit Do
i = line.IndexOf(">", i)
If i < 0 Then Exit Do
line = line.Insert(i+1, char(13) & chr(10))
While True

William Elliott

here ya go

Dim source, target
source = "myfile.txt"
target = "myfile2.txt"
 
Dim fso, f, f2
dim x, y
Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2
 
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
If fso.FileExists(source) Then
   Dim inputLine, outputLine
   Set f = fso.OpenTextFile(source, ForReading, False)
   Set f2 = fso.OpenTextFile(target, ForWriting, True)
   While Not f.AtEndOfStream
      inputLine = f.ReadLine
			outputline = parseme(inputLine)
      f2.Write outputline
   Wend
   f.Close
   f2.Close
   Set f2 = Nothing
   Set f = Nothing
   MsgBox "Done"
Else
   MsgBox source, vbOKOnly, "Source File Not Found"
End If
Set fso = Nothing
 
function parseme(strtext)
' remove trailing lines
	parseme = rtrim(strtext)
 
'remove carriage returns
	parseme = Replace(parseme, vbCr, "")
 
'remove line feeds
	parseme = Replace(parseme, vblf, "")
 
'find "</END??>" and add vbcrlf
	x = instr(parseme, "</END") 'if exists find a location 
'loop to find multiple '</end"'s
	do until x = 0 
			y = instr(x, parseme, ">")
			parseme = left(parseme, y+1) & vbcrlf & mid(parseme, y+1) 'starting on character past the ">"
			x = instr(y, parseme, "</END") 
	loop
end function

Open in new window

William Elliott

hmm,.. i did a simple vbscript,.. but i'm sure you don't really have to change it to make it work with vb

just name the file something.vbs and edit the 'inputfile and outputfilenames.
or setup as arguments or something.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

William Elliott

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

Brothernod

ASKER

I won't lie, I was really hoping for a nice clean vb.net example.

BUT

I needed this quick, and weelio did provide a quick complete solution.

Thank you.

Brothernod

ASKER

It's in VBA not VB.NET but I guess it was close enough since I'm in a hurry :)