From: Jimmy Kofler Date: 2008-06-27T00:34:42+09:00 Subject: Re: Deleting a line in a file > Justin To wrote: > Hi, how do I delete a line in a file and remove the empty space > afterward? > > Thanks! Some additional in-place file editing options on Unix: /bin/ed -s file.txt <<< $'/b/d\nw' # delete first line containing "b" /bin/ed -s file.txt <<< $'g/b/d\nw' # delete all lines containing "b" /usr/bin/sed -i "" -e '/b/d' file.txt /bin/ed -s file.txt <<< $'2,2d\nw' # delete second line /usr/bin/sed -i "" -e '2,2d' file.txt More on the ed text editor here: http://bash-hackers.org/wiki/doku.php?id=howto:edit-ed Using Ruby from the command line: ruby -p -i -e 'm ||= 0; m == 1 ? $_ : $_.sub!(/^.*2.*$/m, "") || $_; m = 1 unless $~.nil?' file.txt ruby -p -i -e '$_.sub!(/^.*b.*$/m, "")' file.txt ruby -p -i -e '$_.sub!(/^.*$/m, "") if $. == 2' file.txt For more information on selective deletion of certain lines see: http://www.fepus.net/ruby1line.txt Cheers, j.k. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.