Howdy.

This is my first post here. Looks like a very active forum!

I am looking for a way to search a file for a specific string, and find all of the lines that contain that string.

Then - delete all of those lines without changing any of the other lines.

Is this possible in vi?

This is an especially large file, so I want it to happen all at once instead of having to confirm each deleted line.

Thanks!

-Zim

Why not use sed? For example, to delete all the line containing the string B. GatesOf course, make a copy of the file first!!

[EDIT:] Ooops! Revised the command so it does in-place editting.

If you prefer a more "manual" way using vi, use grep to find all occurences of the line and the number of the line where it appears in the file, for instance:
The (-n) will list all line numbers in the file where B. Gates is, with vi you place the cursor at the beginning of these lines and type: 'dd' to remove the line. You can also use the grep command and pipe it to "rm" to automate. Back up the file first and try on a copy as suggested above.

EDIT: Of course, both of these examples are bash and not vi, I don't think you can automate with vi. Type: 'vimtutor' in a terminal to take a little course for using vi/vim.

And if you actually want the file changed, use the -i flag ... ;}


Cheers,
Tink