How to Delete each line of the file from Powershell Script

Question

I have file with the content of

123
234
345

I am using a foreach loop to read each line of the file.

I have a requirement like: I would like to remove each line of the file inside the foreach loop.

Is there anyway to remove line of the file inside foreach loop?

Here's what I've tried:

$source1 = "Y:\New Documents\test.txt"
foreach ($line in Get-Content $source1) {
    $find = $line
    (Get-Content $source1).replace($find,"") |
        Set-Content $source1
}

I am able to clear the content of file and I don't know how to make file with zero size.

And removing each line will render you an empty file as an output. What's exactly are you looking for. Please elaborate. — Vivek Kumar Singh
– Vivek Kumar Singh, Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 16:36
lets say i want read 123 from file then i will do other stuffs then want to remove 123 from file and i want to go like that and finally i want empty file as a output — Rab
– Rab, Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 16:37
Why would you delete each line? Just read the file, process it, then clear it. — Maximilian Burszley
– Maximilian Burszley, Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 17:00
@Rab The business is wrong. There's no logical reason to do that. — Maximilian Burszley
– Maximilian Burszley, Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 17:04

Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-12 17:30:52Z

1

What you want to do is called "truncating a file". PowerShell has a cmdlet for that:

Clear-Content $source1

If you want to do some processing first: do that first, then clear the file:

Get-Content $source1 | ForEach-Object {
    # do stuff with content of $source1
}

Clear-Content $source1

If there is a situation where you want to process the content and keep lines under one circumstance or the other you could collect the lines that should be kept in a variable and write that back to the file:

$remains = Get-Content $source1 | ForEach-Object {
    if (<# some condition or other #>) {
        # do stuff with matching lines
    } else {
        # output back to pipeline
        $_
    }
}

# write $remains back to file if it's not empty, otherwise clear file
if ($remains) {
    $remains | Set-Content $source1
} else {
    Clear-Content $source1
}

edited Jul 12, 2018 at 17:30

answered Jul 12, 2018 at 16:55

Ansgar Wiechers

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