I guess I asked too soon. I found some code on-line and was able to
put it together in a form that would work for my uses. Actually
pretty straight forward.

Sub DeleteExtraLines(SourceFile As String)
Dim TargetFile As String, tLine As String
Dim i As Long, F1 As Integer, F2 As Integer

TargetFile = "RESULT.TMP"
If Dir(SourceFile) = "" Then Exit Sub
If Dir(TargetFile) < "" Then
On Error Resume Next
Kill TargetFile
On Error GoTo 0
If Dir(TargetFile) < "" Then
MsgBox TargetFile & _
" already open, close and delete / rename the file and
try again.", _
vbCritical
Exit Sub
End If
End If
F1 = FreeFile
Open SourceFile For Input As F1
F2 = FreeFile
Open TargetFile For Output As F2
i = 1 ' line counter
Application.StatusBar = "Reading data from " & _
TargetFile & " ..."
While Not EOF(F1)
If i Mod 100 = 0 Then Application.StatusBar = _
"Reading line #" & i & " in " & _
TargetFile & " ..."
Line Input #F1, tLine
If Mid(tLine, 9, 3) = "009" Then 'This is where you enter the
clause for which lines you want to copy, in my case, any line where
the 9-11 characters are "009"
Print #F2, tLine
End If
i = i + 1
Wend
Application.StatusBar = "Closing files ..."
Close F1
Close F2
Kill SourceFile ' delete original file
Name TargetFile As SourceFile ' rename temporary file
Application.StatusBar = False
End Sub

Hope this helps someone else in the future.

On Mar 1, 1:55*pm, JAC wrote:
On 1 Mar, 19:05, "Aaron.*" wrote:





I've scoured the usual sources, but haven't found any existing code
that will accomplish what I need, so here's my situation.

I've got a large text file from my company's mainframe. *It's around
120,000 lines, with each record from a particular database taking up
several lines (generally 8 to 16). *Of those lines, only 4 of them are
needed for the output file I need to produce. *Since there is an
import limit on Excel 2003, I'd like to remove the extraneous lines
prior to the actual opening of the file in Excel. *It should be pretty
easy to isolate which lines to delete:

Example data:

RECORD1 11 DATA-01 DATA-25 DATA-49
RECORD1 14 DATA-02 DATA-26 DATA-50
RECORD1 17 DATA-03 DATA-27 DATA-51
RECORD1 20 DATA-04 DATA-28 DATA-52
RECORD1 31 DATA-05 DATA-29 DATA-53
RECORD1 34 DATA-06 DATA-30 DATA-54
RECORD1 37 DATA-07 DATA-31 DATA-55
RECORD1 40 DATA-08 DATA-32 DATA-56
RECORD2 11 DATA-09 DATA-33 DATA-57
RECORD2 14 DATA-10 DATA-34 DATA-58
RECORD2 17 DATA-11 DATA-35 DATA-59
RECORD2 20 DATA-12 DATA-36 DATA-60
RECORD2 31 DATA-13 DATA-37 DATA-61
RECORD2 34 DATA-14 DATA-38 DATA-62
RECORD2 37 DATA-15 DATA-39 DATA-63
RECORD2 40 DATA-16 DATA-40 DATA-64
RECORD3 11 DATA-17 DATA-41 DATA-65
RECORD3 14 DATA-18 DATA-42 DATA-66
RECORD3 17 DATA-19 DATA-43 DATA-67
RECORD3 20 DATA-20 DATA-44 DATA-68
RECORD3 31 DATA-21 DATA-45 DATA-69
RECORD3 34 DATA-22 DATA-46 DATA-70
RECORD3 37 DATA-23 DATA-47 DATA-71
RECORD3 40 DATA-24 DATA-48 DATA-72

Basically, the 9th and 10th characters of a row would determine
whether or not I keep the line or delete them.

I know how to do this in VBA (Basically a match using If
Mid(Cells(currow, 1), 9, 2) < "[Value to Match]" And etc...), but I
can't figure out how to manipulate the text prior to importing to
avoid that 65,000 row limit.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Aaron,

As far as I am aware, there is no easy way of doing this, since the
import routines supplied with Excel do not allow for the exclusion of
specified records - only skipping fields.

I suspect that you will have to write your own VBA subroutine to
import the records selectively. That is what I did when I was faced
with a similar problem a couple of years ago.

If you need further information, I will gladly supply a code fragment
that you can modify to suit your own needs.

JAC- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -