Edit text between two lines using powershell - powershell

Question

I want to change this text
PortNumber=10001
;UserName=xxxxxxxxx
;Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx
into this
PortNumber=10001
UserName=xxxxxxxxx
Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx
I cannot simply search for ;Username=xxxx and ;Password=xxxx because they exist multiple times in the file and need to be commented on some places.
I found the next command
$file = Get-Content "Test.ini" -raw
$file -replace "(?m)^PortNumber=10001[\n\r]+;UserName=xxxx[\r\n]+;Password=xxxx","PortNumber=10001 `r`nUserName=xxxxx`r`nPassword=xxxxx"
And it worked!
But maybe it can be simplyfied

Answer 1

If you use the (?ms) (multiline-singleline) option and here-strings, you can do most of the work with copy/paste:
$string =
#'
PortNumber=10001
;UserName=xxxxxxxxx
;Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx
'#
$regex =
#'
(?ms)PortNumber=10001
;UserName=xxxxxxxxx
;Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx
'#
$replace =
#'
PortNumber=10001
UserName=xxxxxxxxx
Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx
'#
$string -replace $regex,$replace
PortNumber=10001
UserName=xxxxxxxxx
Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx

Answer 2

Why don't you search full text which you'd like to replace?
So find:
PortNumber=10001
;UserName=xxxxxxxxx
;Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx
and replace with:
PortNumber=10001
UserName=xxxxxxxxx
Password=xxxxxxxxx
CiPdfPath=xxxxx
You can use regular expression to express irrelevant characters
http://www.regular-expressions.info/powershell.html
http://www.powershelladmin.com/wiki/Powershell_regular_expressions

Answer 3

You could use Regex.
Or even simpler, depending on your requirement;
If you know the linenumber of the lines you want to replace, you could easily do this do replace the certain lines:
Given that the file format is the text you've pasted (e.g. username on line 2 and password on line 3), read the file into a line buffer. Replace line 2 and 3 and set the content back to the file.
$lines=(Get-Content .\Test.txt)
$lines[1]= $lines[1].Replace(";","")
$lines[2]= $lines[2].Replace(";","")
$lines|Set-Content .\Test.txt

Answer 4

I might be misunderstading the nature of the question but are you not simply trying to remove the leading semicolons? Is it important to seach for those strings exclusivley?
$file = Get-Content "Test.ini" -raw
$file -replace "(?sm)^;"
$file -replace "(?smi)^;(?=(username|password))"
Both examples should produce the same output. The first will match all leading semicolons. The second will match leading semicolons if the are followed, using a lookahead, by either username or password.