Powershell renaming files recursively, not renaming duplicates - powershell

Question

I have some powershell code that is meant to take specific characters out of file names recursively. This works great, unless taking the characters out causes 2 files to match names in the same folder.
I found the Powershell here PowerShell script to remove characters from files and folders but it doesn't solve the issue I am having.
$characters = "$#"
$regex = "[$([regex]::Escape($characters))]"
$filesandfolders = Get-ChildItem -recurse "D:\projects\filenameCleaner\TEST" | Where-Object {$_.name -match $regex}
$filesandfolders | Where-Object {!$_.PsIscontainer} | foreach {
$New=$_.name -Replace $regex
Rename-Item -path $_.Fullname -newname $New -passthru
}
$filesandfolders | Where-Object {$_.PsIscontainer} | foreach {
$New=$_.name -Replace $regex
Rename-Item -path $_.Fullname -newname $New -passthru
}
I'm not very versed in Powershell yet and would love some help with this. I just want the script that, if it finds a duplicate, it should just add a (1) or (2) etc at the end, depending on how many there are.
Please don't just give me an answer, explain it so that I can learn what is happening

Answer 1

I think the way to tackle this is to create a new PSOBJECT which contains your source and target paths. You can then use the Group-object to group on the target path which will give you a count which you can then use to determine which files will need a number suffix.
Something like this:
Get-ChildItem -recurse "D:\projects\filenameCleaner\TEST" | ? {!$_.PsIscontainer} | % {
New-Object psobject -Property #{
source = $_.FullName
target = ($_.FullName -replace [regex]::Escape($_.Name)) + ($_.Name -replace '[\$#]+', '')
}
} | Group-Object target | % {
$g = $_.Group
0..($g.Count - 1) | % {
New-Object psobject -Property #{
source = $g[$_].source
target = $g[$_].target -replace '\.', #('.', "($($_)).")[$_ -gt 0]
}
}
} | % {Rename-Item -Path $_.source -NewName $_.Target}
The nice thing about doing it this way is that it can two, three or more duplcates
I have only done the code for files so you would need another version for folders.

Answer 2

I was able to do this by adding an if-statement that checks the new path
$characters = "$#}"
$regex = "[$([regex]::Escape($characters))]"
$path = "D:\projects\filenameCleaner\TEST"
$filesandfolders = Get-ChildItem -recurse $path | Where-Object {$_.name -match $regex}
$filesandfolders | Where-Object {!$_.PsIscontainer} | foreach {
$New=$_.name -Replace $regex
$newPath = $path+"\"+$New
$loop = 0
while (Test-Path $newPath) {
$loop = $loop + 1
$basename = $_.basename -Replace $regex
$New = $basename + " ("+$loop+")"+$_.extension
$newPath = $path+"\"+$New
}
"Rename `""+$_.name+"`" to `""+$New+"`""
Rename-Item -path $_.Fullname -newname $New -passthru
}
$filesandfolders | Where-Object {$_.PsIscontainer} | foreach {
$New=$_.name -Replace $regex
$newPath = $path+"\"+$New
$loop = 0
while (Test-Path $newPath) {
$loop = $loop + 1
$basename = $_.basename -Replace $regex
$New = $basename + " ("+$loop+")"+$_.extension
$newPath = $path+"\"+$New
}
"Rename `""+$_.name+"`" to `""+$New+"`""
Rename-Item -path $_.Fullname -newname $New -passthru
}
-- Another update that handles the extensions separately when adding the number to the string for duplicates. I was having issues that the number would go onto the file name after the extension which is obviously a no-go