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I have a text file that looks like.

---unique id---
many lines
---------------
---unique id---
many lines
---------------
---unique id---
many lines
---------------
....etc.

I want to simply remove a section between the ---unique id--- and
---------. Now I know I could go through it line by line and output
the filtered text to a tmp file then copy the tmp file back, but thats
impracticle with the file is like a gig in size. Does anyone know a
way I can operate on the text file directly and remove a section
without copying the whole file to a tmp file or temporatily into
memory?

Thanks

Jason Kinkade wrote:
> I have a text file that looks like.
[...]
> I want to simply remove a section between the ---unique id--- and

Did you check "perldoc -q delete":
How do I change one line in a file/delete a line in a file/insert a
line in the middle of a file/append to the beginning of a file?

jue

Jason Kinkade <> wrote in comp.lang.perl.misc:
> I have a text file that looks like.
>
> ---unique id---
> many lines
> ---------------
> ---unique id---
> many lines
> ---------------
> ---unique id---
> many lines
> ---------------
> ...etc.
>
> I want to simply remove a section between the ---unique id--- and
> ---------. Now I know I could go through it line by line and output
> the filtered text to a tmp file then copy the tmp file back, but thats
> impracticle with the file is like a gig in size.

Then you're out of luck. There is n other way.

> Does anyone know a
> way I can operate on the text file directly and remove a section
> without copying the whole file to a tmp file or temporatily into
> memory?

Can't be done with today's standard file systems. If you want to
delete things from the middle of a file, (at least) everything
following the deletion must be rewritten.

Anno

Jason Kinkade <> wrote:

> I know I could go through it line by line and output
^^^^^^^
> the filtered text to a tmp file then copy the tmp file back,


Or you could have Perl do all of that for you by setting $^I
or using the -i command line switch.


> Does anyone know a
> way I can operate on the text file directly and remove a section
> without copying the whole file to a tmp file or temporatily into
> memory?


Nope.


--
Tad McClellan SGML consulting
Perl programming
Fort Worth, Texas