Mass delete of zero split lines?

[Colin Law]

On 9 July 2010 12:44, jcard21 xxxxxxx <jcard21+gnucash at gmail.com> wrote:
>> JimR wrote:
>>> I just discovered something that before I thought was an annoyance, but
>>> now I think is much more of a pain.  When I split a checkbook register
>>> transaction to a payee, the next time I create a split to the same payee,
>>> GNUCash remembers all of those splits.
>>>
>>> In particular, when I break down my credit card bill into multiple
>>> accounts, it remembers those accounts and amounts month-to-month.  For the
>>> past several years, when a particular month did not have a charge to a
>>> specific account, I simply deleted the amount, leaving the split line,
>>> thinking that it caused no harm.
>>>
>>> However, when I went to search for a phrase within one of the accounts, I
>>> got back every month's line item, even though those were all nil amounts.
>>>  (I probably should have expected this.  Hindsight is always 20-20.)
>>>
>>> Is there some way that I can delete all of those nil transactions?  (I
>>> have a hunch a side benefit is that it might speed up the loading of my
>>> files on startup.)
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>>
>
> NOTE: I've been using gnuCash 2.2.9 since April, 2009... and I don't
> use gnuCash's Scheduled Transactions feature.
>
> When I create a new txn (for example: CableTV), I position the cursor
> on the date field of the existing previous month's CableTV txn, press
> Alt+N (MenuBar Transaction), C (copy); then I move the cursor down to
> the last/new/empty line, and I press Alt+N, P (paste).
>
> Then I just edit the new CableTV txn's date, amount, notes, splits, etc.
>
> When editing splits, to completely remove zero amount split lines,
> make sure you delete that split line's Note, Account, and amount
> fields. Then, once you move the cursor off that "empty" split line,
> that split line will get automatically deleted.
>
> Then, just save the new txn.
>
> NOTE: I would recommend gnuCash continues to allow zero amount split lines.

Can you explain why please?

Colin