Delete first line of text file

Question

I need a cmd script that deletes the first line in my text file. The scenario is the following: I take a txt file from FTP everyday, the problem is that it comes with blank line at the top then the headers of the file. Since I'm importing that file automatically into an access table, that blank line is causing me problems.

So, I need a script that deletes the blank line and saves the file.

yes but I read that as typing shorthand for 'command' as a general term, not specifically windows — Preet Sangha, Mar 01 '09 at 22:32

score 30 · Answer 1 · edited Dec 03 '14 at 22:27

30

Windows/command prompt:

more +1 filename.ext > otherfilename.ext

That seems to work fine, however it appears that this also converts tab characters into multiple spaces.. I needed to remove the first line of a tab-delimited file before importing into postgres. That failed due to the automatic conversion of tabs to spaces by more...

edited Dec 03 '14 at 22:27

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answered Mar 01 '09 at 22:32

Guido Domenici

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+1: Nice to see that Microsoft has improved the more command. I had noticed that other commands where improved a lot, but missed this one. – Renze de Waal Mar 01 '09 at 23:08
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-1: Have you tried with a file with lines of more than 15 Mb? It doesn't work at all – user869097 Aug 13 '11 at 13:19
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After 65535th line it hangs. – ercan Aug 21 '15 at 09:50
This command replaces tab by spaces !!! How to do without lost tab ? – sangorys Dec 17 '19 at 16:35

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 01 '09 at 22:19

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You didn't specify a platform. Here's how to do it in any *NIX environment (and Windows+Cygwin):

sed -i~ 1d target-file

answered Mar 01 '09 at 22:19

Adam Rosenfield

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The same as above, it didn't worked with a very long line i.e. 24000000 characters or more – user869097 Aug 13 '11 at 13:20

Renze de Waal · Answer 3 · 2009-03-01T22:44:24.523

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To remove the first line, I would use

tail -n +2 source-file > target-file

If you want this on Windows, download the gnu utils to obtain a tail command. +2 means "Start at the second line".

edited Mar 01 '09 at 22:44

answered Mar 01 '09 at 22:26

Renze de Waal

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If the source and target files are the same (which is likely), this clobbers that file. – Adam Rosenfield Mar 01 '09 at 22:59
You're right they should not be the same. However, they can be chosen by whoever writes the script. – Renze de Waal Mar 01 '09 at 23:05

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 01 '09 at 22:36

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In windows without extra tools:

findstr /V /R "^$" filename.whatever

No extra tools needed

answered Mar 01 '09 at 22:36

Preet Sangha

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@Preet_Sangha i couldn't get this to work. is there something i'm missing? – FistOfFury Jun 10 '13 at 20:10
What happens? What is the input and what is output? – Preet Sangha Jun 10 '13 at 21:34
Should add that a simple output redirect gets the result into a file: `findstr /V /R "^$" filename.whatever>clean_filename.whatever` Also don't use same file for input and output! It'll put the file on 0b. – JDuarteDJ Jul 20 '16 at 14:34

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 08 '15 at 15:06

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I noticed some comments asking how to use Preet Sangha's solution. As I do not have enough rep to add a comment, I wanted to post a more complete solution here.

You can use Preet Sangha's solution as follows. This script will create a new text file without the first line of the input file.

findstr /V /R "^$" InputFile.txt > OutputFileNameWithFirstLineRemoved.txt

answered Jul 08 '15 at 15:06

Nick Painter

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that would remove _any_ empty line (what seems to be wanted here; just to mention it for other searchers) – Stephan Jul 08 '15 at 16:28
The solution provided by Preet Sangha was the best imho, I was able to process file with over 3GB in seconds! BTW I used this code inside a BAT file to process multiple files (from smallest to largest) `FOR /F %%a in ('dir /B /O:S *.sql') do (findstr /V /R "$" %%a > clean_%%a)` – JDuarteDJ Jul 20 '16 at 14:31
@sangorys This has worked in every case that I have tested. Can you provide any details on the encoding of file that you are using? – Nick Painter Dec 18 '19 at 18:29
1. It didn't remove the fist line for me. 2. it removed a lot of void lines in the middle of the file. – klm123 May 22 '22 at 11:15

score 3 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 07 '14 at 15:57

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I needed to do something similar today and this was what I came up with:

FOR /F "tokens=* skip=1" %A IN ('type "input_file.ext"') DO @echo %A>>"output_file.ext"

This has the advantage over the more +1 solution in that tab characters will be preserved. However, on large files this method is a lot slower than others. Also - leading spaces will be left-trimmed, which may or may not be a problem.

answered Sep 07 '14 at 15:57

Jimadine

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You can make it a lot faster for big files with `(for ...... do @echo/%A)>"output.ext"` (just one redirection). (Although it should be mentioned that this removes *every* empty line) – Stephan Oct 18 '21 at 21:45

Delete first line of text file

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