The Hey, Scripting Guy! Archive: Text Files

The Hey, Scripting Guy! archive collects and categorizes questions answered in the Hey, Scripting Guy! column. If you’d prefer to see a chronological list of all the questions ever answered in Hey, Scripting Guy! click here.

Reading Text Files

•	How Can I Read the MAC Address From a Text File?
•	How Can I Extract Miscellaneous Computer Names From a Text File?
•	How Can I Search a Text File for Activities That Took Place on a Specified Date?
•	How Can I Search for a Word in a Text File and Return the Entire Line Where That Word Was Found?
•	How Can I Sort a Text File Based on a Specific Column in That File?
•	How Can I Read a Text File and Extract All the Text Enclosed in Double Quote Marks?
•	How Can I Use Windows PowerShell to Determine the Number of Lines in a Text File?
•	How Can I Use Data Read From a Text File as Command-Line Parameters For a Batch File?
•	How Can I Extract All the Text Between Two Tags in a Text File?
•	How Can I Search a Text File for Terms Read In From a Second Text File?
•	How Can I Retrieve IP Addresses (and Only IP Addresses) From a Text File?
•	How Can I Parse a Comma-Separated Values File?
•	How Can I Extract Text Embedded Between Target Phrases in a Text File?
•	How Can I Compare the Contents of Two Text Files?
•	How Can I Add the Contents of a Group of Text Files to an Access Database?
•	How Can I Search Every Text File in a Folder For Phone Numbers?
•	How Can I Search For Phone Numbers in a Text File?
•	How Can I Read the Contents of a Text File and Then Declare the Contents as Variables?
•	How Can I Locate a Word in a Text File and Then Echo Back That Word and Any Remaining Text?
•	How Can I Search a Text File for Strings Meeting a Specified Pattern?
•	How Can I Count the Number of Characters in a Text File?
•	How Can I Tally Up All the Words Found in a Text File?
•	How Can I Locate a Value in a Text File and Then Parse the Line of Text Where the Value Was Found?
•	How Can I Extract Information Located Between Two Known Values in a Text File?
•	How Can I Extract the Text Between the Header and Footer in a Text File?
•	How Can I Locate Strings That Consist of a Series of Numbers Followed by .ZIP?
•	How Can I Tell Whether a Phrase Occurs At Least Twice in a Text File?
•	How Can I Query a Text File and Retrieve Records That Occurred on a Specific Date?
•	How Can I Open a Text File as Unicode?
•	How Can I Count the Number of Words in a Text File?
•	How Can I Read Just the Last Line of a Text File?
•	How Can I Count the Number of Times a Word Appears in a Log File?
•	How Can I Use ADO to Read a Text File Where All the Data is on a Single Line?
•	How Can I Read a Text File on a Remote Computer?
•	How Can I Add the Last Lines from a Group of Text Files to a Word Document?
•	How Can I Search for Two Items in a Text File?
•	How Can I Tally Items in a Text File?
•	How Can I Search a Text File for 9-Digit Numbers?
•	How Can I Read Text From a File and Then Rename the File Using the Text I Just Read?
•	How Can I Read Just a Single, Specified Line from a Text File?
•	Can I Read an Entire Text File Rather Than Reading It Line-by-Line?
•	How Can I Count the Number of Lines in a Text File?
•	How Can I Read in IP Addresses and Use Them in a Script?
•	Can I Read a Text File From the Bottom Up?

Writing/Modifying Text Files

•	How Can I Replace a Series of Variables Found in a Text File with Values Taken From That File?
•	How Can I Modify a Text File Based on the Value of a Particular Column in the File?
•	How Can I Remove Specified Commas from a Comma-Separated Values File?
•	How Can I Add a Line to the Beginning of a Text File And Simultaneously Delete the Last Line of That File?
•	How Can I Remove Delimiters, and Fix Apostrophes, in a CSV File?
•	How Can I Parse a Text File and Retrieve All the Information Contained Within Square Brackets?
•	How Can I Delete Duplicate Entries in a Tab-Delimited File?
•	How Can I Conditionally Add Lines to a Text File?
•	How Can I Check to See if Two Lines of Text are in a File and, If They Aren’t, Append Those Lines to the File?
•	How Can I Remove Extraneous Spaces From Fields in a Text File?
•	How Can I Sort the Contents of a Text File in Numerical Order?
•	How Can I Use Windows PowerShell to Replace Characters in a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove Duplicate Values From a Pair of Text Files?
•	How Can I Replace Text That Includes Double Quote Marks and a Tab Character?
•	How Can I Make the Name of the File the First Line of Each Text File in a Folder?
•	How Can I Remove Unwanted Tabs From a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove Any Line in a Text File That Contains a Specified String Value?
•	How Can I Remove All the Non-Alphabetic Characters in a String?
•	How Can I Reverse All the Lines in a Text File?
•	How Can I Combine Lines in a Text File?
•	How Can I Add an HTML Tag to the End of Each Line in a File?
•	How Can I Insert a Page Break in a Text File After Each Line Where the Only Character is the Number 1?
•	How Can I Insert Commas at Specified Locations in Each Line in a Text File?
•	How Can I Clear the Contents of a Text File?
•	How Can I Delete the First Line and the Last Line in a Text File?
•	How Can I Replace Single Quote Marks in a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove the First Five Lines From All the Log Files in a Folder?
•	How Can I Replace the First Five Characters in a Text File With the First Five Characters in the Computer Name?
•	How Can I Parse a Tab-Delimited File and Then Save That as a Comma-Separated Values File?
•	How Can I Modify a Text File and Then Extract Selected Lines From the Modified Contents?
•	How Can I Insert Text Into a “Bookmark” in a Text File?
•	How Can I Delete Just the IP Addresses From Each Line in a Text File?
•	How Can I Number the Lines in a Text File?
•	How Can I Append a Blank Line to a Text File, Then Append the Current Date and Time?
•	How Can I Make Sure That No Line in a Text File Exceeds 261 Characters?
•	How Can I Delete Just the Last Line of a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove Double Double Quotes From a Text File?
•	How Can I Replace Selected Lines in an XML File?
•	How Can I Insert Text Into a Specific Column of a Text File?
•	How Can I Add Leading Zeroes to All the Lines in a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove All the Blank Lines from a Text File?
•	How Can I Increment the Last Line in a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove All Duplicate Lines From a Text File?
•	How Can I Add a Line to the Top of a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove All the Double Quote Marks in a Text File?
•	How Can I Remove the Last Carriage Return-Linefeed in a Text File?
•	How Can I Add Two Blank Lines Between Each Line in a Text File?
•	How Can I Eliminate Duplicate Names in a Text File?
•	How Can I Convert a Comma-Separated Values File to a Tab-Separated Values File?
•	How Can I Add a Word to a Text File if That Word Isn’t Already in the File?
•	How Can I Write Double Quotes to a Text File?
•	How Can I Sort the Contents of a Text File?
•	How Can I Find and Replace Text in a Text File?
•	Can I Combine Multiple Text Files Using a Script?
•	Can I Edit .INI Files Using a Script?
•	How Can I Create a CSV File?
•	How Can I Pick Out and Save Specific Lines in a Text File?
•	How Can I Save Output to a Text File?

Other Text File Tasks

•	How Can I Use Windows PowerShell to Sort a CSV File?
•	How Can I Print Text Files to a Printer Other than the Default Printer?
•	How Can I Use ADO to Open a Text File That has Spaces in the File Name?
•	How Can I Print Text Files Using a Script?

Hey, Scripting Guy! Categories

•	Active Directory
•	Basic Scripting
•	Desktop Management
•	Events and Monitoring
•	Files and Folders
•	Hardware and Devices
•	HTML Applications
•	Internet Explorer
•	Local Accounts
•	Microsoft Office
•	Operating System Tasks
•	Printing
•	Text Files

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