Ufdjrw

it's my first attempt at doing this and I have no idea if I'm on the right lines.

Basically I want to remove text from a CSV file that contains a specific keyword but I can't figure out how to remove the line.

 static void Main(string[] args)
 
 var searchItem = "running";

 var lines = File.ReadLines("C://Users//Pete//Desktop//testdata.csv");

 foreach (string line in lines)
 
 if (line.Contains(searchItem))
 
 //Remove line here?
 
 
 

The simple way if you'd like to remove a whole line:

 var searchItem = "running";
 var pathToYourFile = @"C://Users//Pete//Desktop//testdata.csv";
 var lines = File.ReadAllLines(pathToYourFile);
 lines = lines.Where(line => !line.Contains(searchItem)).ToArray();
 File.WriteAllLines(pathToYourFile, lines);

For multiple search items:

 var searchItems = "running;walking;waiting;any";
 var pathToYourFile = @"....items.csv";
 var lines = File.ReadAllLines(pathToYourFile);
 // split with your separator, actually is ';' character
 foreach(var searchItem in searchItems.Split(';'))
 lines = lines.Where(line =>!line.Contains(searchItem)).ToArray();

 File.WriteAllLines(pathToYourFile, lines);

Try this one to remove one or a few multiple words.

static void sd(string[] args)

 string contents = File.ReadAllText("C://Users//Pete//Desktop//testdata.csv");

 string output = contents.Replace("running", string.Empty).Replace("replaceThis", string.Empty).Replace("replaceThisToo", string.Empty);
 //string output = contents.Replace("a", "b").Replace("b", "c").Replace("c", "d");

To remove multiple string, you can use this...

static void Main(string[] args)

 string[] removeTheseWords = "aaa", "bbb", "ccc" ;

 string contents = File.ReadAllText("C://Users//Pete//Desktop//testdata.csv");
 string output = string.Empty;

 foreach (string value in removeTheseWords)
 
 output = contents.Replace(value, string.Empty);
 

More info: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.string.replace

if you are using foreach and removing from lines its will through an exception called collection modified exception so go with for

for(int i=lines.Count - 1; i > -1; i--)

 if (lines[i].Contains(searchItem))
 
 lines.RemoveAt(i);
 

You don't need to remove line just skip those lines that contain your search term

foreach (string line in lines)

 if (!line.Contains(searchItem)) //<= Notice here I added exclamation mark (!)
 
 //Do your work when line does not contains search term
 
 else
 
 //Do something if line contains search term
 

Or alternative is to filtered your lines that does not contains your search term before loop like

lines = lines.Where(line => !line.Contains(searchItem));

foreach (string line in lines)

 //Here are those line that does not contain search term 

If your search term contains multiple words separated with comma(,) then you can skip those line by

lines = lines.Where(line => searchItem.Split(',').All(term => !line.Contains(term)));