Is it possible to write a batch file that will read every line of a text file and when it finds a date that is older than one year, will delete all lines above that date. The reason I am asking is that I have a lot of .log files and I only need to keep anything that has happened in the past year so I thought batch could help me with the housekeeping.

yes, definitely can be solved. show a sample of that log file, especially that date format. Unix Win32 tools | Gawk for Windows

Hi ghostdog, thanks for your interest, below is a simple example of the content of one of the .log files. Other files are more complicated (and contain sensitive information) but the date format remains the same: . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 18/03/2009 11:44 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo.180309.1143 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** . . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 18/03/2009 11:47 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo18114706.180309.1147 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** . . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 18/03/2009 12:14 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo18121332.180309.1213 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** . . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 19/03/2009 08:00 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo.190309.0800 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** . . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 20/03/2009 08:00 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo.200309.0800 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** . . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 20/03/2009 15:04 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo20150405.200309.1504 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** . . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 20/03/2009 15:24 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo20152455.200309.1524 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** . . **********START********** . Current time at \\SCDCDC3 is 20/03/2009 22:32 The command completed successfully. d:\l\test\var\pmcli\ifc\NEW\CCS\jobs\bjobo.200309.2232 1 file(s) moved. . **********FINISH********** Many Thanks

here's a vbscript. (not the full solution). Set objFS = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") strFile = "c:\test\file.txt" flag=0 Set objFile = objFS.OpenTextFile(strFile,1) Do Until objFile.AtEndOfStream strLine = objFile.ReadLine If InStr(strLine,"FINISH") >0 And flag=1 Then flag=0 End If If InStr(strLine,"START") >0 Then flag=1 End If If flag=1 And ( InStr(strLine,"Current time") > 0) Then ArrDate = Split(strLine) strDate=ArrDate(UBound(ArrDate) -1) strTime = ArrDate(UBound(ArrDate)) If DateDiff("d",strDate,Now ) > 365 Then flag=0 Else WScript.Echo strLine End If ElseIf flag=1 then WScript.Echo strLine End If Loop on command line, type cscript /nologo myscript.vbs Unix Win32 tools | Gawk for Windows

Wow, thanks ghostdog, I tried it on a test file and it does just what I wanted. Many thanks for your help Thank goodness I have found this fantastic forum I am learning such a lot from you all.