How to delete text after 3rd line in multiple files

Question

I'm looking for a way so I can delete lines in text files after a specific line.

for example, a file contains 5 lines. I want to delete lines after the third line. see,

• Line 1
• Line 2
• Line 3
• xxxxxx
• xxxxxx1

here, I want to keep first 3 lines(line 1, line 2, line 3) and delete remaining 2 lines(xxxxxx, xxxxxx1) and automatically save that text file. I want to do this to multiple text files. Want to delete every line after the 3rd line in every text file inside a folder.

Any way to do this using notepad++?? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

This seems like quite standard text operation for a number of Linux tools (don't mind the technical incorrectness), GNU sed being one of them. Until Bash/Ubuntu comes out for Windows 10, you can use something like git bash which I tested to work for the below command.

sed -i '4,$d' *

Would delete all lines starting from the 4th line in all files in the directory you are in.

Answer 2

This can be done without installing software but instead creating a simple batch script. Here's a script that will do what you want:

@echo off > NEWFILE & setLocal enableDELAYedeXpansioN
set/p D=delete all after what line?
set N=
:main
for /f "tokens=* delims= " %%a in (file.txt) do (
set/a N+=1
if !N! leq !D! echo.%%a
) >> NEWFILE

Where file.txt is the actual file. When you execute this script, it will ask you what line to delete after, simply say 3. Copy the above code and paste it in a .bat file.