Are you 100 percent sure that deleting the line will be sufficient?
I know that I often break single logical lines across physical lines when they are long. The lines, in my case are often complex table statements in proc tabulate, variable lists in array declarations, parameters for multiple parameter macros, ods or graphics options.
It could be that removing a single physical line would yield unworkable code, or at least that would yield unexpected results.
I suspect that your first step would be a reformatter that would create single physical lines to match the logical lines. After you get this it should be relatively easy. Comments in your code may make this a tad harder because of potential length of comment sections and different coding styles such as
/* a very long comment spanning several lines with
one ending comment indicator like this
*/
and the
/* every line is commented separately like this */
* or the occasional line commented like this;
and the macro commenting .
Should comments involving your search term be removed?? Especially since they could contain other critical information.
Also, are you looking to replace the original file leaving no trace of your starting condition (probably a bad idea) or to copy the source to a safe location and then rewrite the modified code to the original location?
