text and files

[kalos]

hello

I have a bunch of text files

I want to search for specific block of text (multiline text) and if found in a file to delete that file

also, if found on that file, to delete that text, or the other that that text

how can I perform these actions?

thanks!

[Curt]

search for the specific text, and delete the search result files.

[kalos]

search for the specific text, and delete the search result files.

you mean to open each file manually, search for the text in an editor that supports block text search, and then delete manually the file?
we are talking about 15,000 files...

[Curt]

have you disabled indexing? If not, your computer already knows the content of all your text files!

[cyberdiva]

Another possibility is to use a desktop search engine like the freeware Agent Ransack (I use the commercial version, File Locator Pro, from the same company).  You can tell it what block of text to search for, likely file extensions to look in, and any number of other ways to narrow the search (date, time, size, etc.).  It will be slower than a search engine that indexes your files, but I like the fact that it doesn't index and is thus always up to date.  Once it has identified the files, you can delete them.

[x16wda]

Another possibility is to use a desktop search engine like the freeware Agent Ransack

+1 for Agent Ransack.

[skwire]

I want to search for specific block of text (multiline text) and if found in a file to delete that file

also, if found on that file, to delete that text, or the other that that text

These two actions seem to be mutually exclusive, no?  I mean, why "delete that text, or the other that that text" if you're going to delete the file anyway?

At any rate, there are plenty of applications that will find and replace text across multiple files.  Just do some Googling or DDG'ing.  Here's one:

http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/textcrawler.html