I am trying to run a find and replace on all of the files in a directory. I am running windows 7 Enterprise, and the folder that is being searched is on the local machine. Whenever I run the statement on just the 5 .SQL files in the folder, the script runs fine. When I add another folder inside the first(so now there are 5 .sql's and one folder with nothing in it yet) and try to run the same statement, I get an error that access denied to the new folder. I have tried everything with setting permissions on the folder, files and everything else I could think of that might keep it from accessing that child folder. Any advise would be greatly appreciated. I have even tried making sure the attributes were set correctly on the folder in windows.
This is the script I am using, which works when all the files are in the root of the folder, but anything in child folders throws an error.
(get-Content D:\project\*) | Foreach-Object {$_ -replace ";", ""} | Set-Content D:\project\*
Rather do something like this:
$folder = 'D:\project'
foreach ($f in (Get-ChildItem $folder -Recurse | ? {-not $_.PSIsContainer})) {
(Get-Content $f.FullName) -replace ';' | Set-Content $f.FullName
}
I wouldn't feel comfortable with a wildcard at both beginning and end of the pipeline, even if it would work (which it doesn't).
Was able to achieve what I was trying to do with this code. Thanks for your input all. This gives me the option to change all of the files with the SQL extension.
Get-ChildItem D:\Projects *.SQL -recurse |
Foreach-Object {
$c = ($_ | Get-Content)
$c = $c -replace ";", ""
[IO.File]::WriteAllText($_.FullName, ($c -join "`r`n"))
}
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I'm not a beginner to scripting with PowerShell and have discovered just how powerful and amazing it truly is. I get confused with some things though so I am here seeking help with a few things with the script that I'm in the process of creating. My script manages a few things. It:
• prompt user to select a directory
• recursively moves files that are many levels deep into the parent folder
• deletes all empty folders after the move
•renames the parent folders by removing periods and other "illegal" characters because the program that uses these files will crash if there are any characters besides numbers or letters.
• renames the files to the parent's name.
• exits when finished
The files don't have a file format extension, they're approx 32 characters long and are alphanumeric.
Unfortunately, the script cannot make it past the first step (moving the files) if it is placed in a directory outside of the one that contains the folders and files. If I place it in the root of the directory containing said files and folders, it works flawlessly. If it is ran in another directory containing other files, it will work with the files and folders there after finishing the 1st step which is set using $RootPath, the rest of the script is not using $RootPath and I need to figure out how to edit the code I have to utilize it.
However no matter what I do, I fail. I know I can just run it from the directory containing the files that need to be moved but I intend to release this on a forum that I frequent and want to make sure it is safe for those that use it. ie: I don't want their system getting messed up through carelessness or ignorance.
Full Disclosure: I'm not good at writing code on my own, I find chunks of code offered in forums, test and if it accomplishes what I need, I tweak it to work with my intended use. Most of this code I found here.
How can I get the last ⅔ of my script to use my $RootPath instead of the script's residing directory? I have tried a few things but end up breaking it's functionally and the thing is, in my mind, I see why it's not working but reading the code is where I have a Patrick-Star-drooling moment. This is when I get overwhelmed and take a break or focus on something else that I do understand. I know I need to make the rest of my code utilize $RootPath that gets set when selecting a directory but I can't figure out how to get it to use it.
Additionally, I would like the final step to append "_1" to the file name when there is a naming conflict. I can't seem to figure out how to get this step to carry over from the first step.
Here is a pastebin link of my script. It is a bit long, I have also pasted the code in case that is preferred.
# You need this to use System.Windows.MessageBox
Add-Type -AssemblyName 'PresentationFramework'
Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
$continue = 'No'
$caption = "'Bulk File Renamer Script' by MyLegzRwheelz."
$message = "Have you read the ENTIRE disclaimer (from the very top, I know, it is a lot) in the console window along the instructions provided and do you agree that you are responsible for your own negligence and anything that can go wrong IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW MY INSTRUCTIONS PRECISELY? If so, then click 'Yes' to proceed, 'No' to exit."
$continue = [System.Windows.MessageBox]::Show($message, $caption, 'YesNo');
if ($continue -eq 'Yes') {
$characters = "?!'._" # These are the characters the script finds and removes
$regex = "[$([regex]::Escape($characters))]"
$filesandfolders = Get-ChildItem -recurse | Where-Object {$_.name -match $regex}
$browser = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.FolderBrowserDialog
$null = $browser.ShowDialog()
$RootPath = $browser.SelectedPath
# Get list of parent folders in root path
$ParentFolders = Get-ChildItem -Path $RootPath | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer}
# For each parent folder get all files recursively and move to parent, append number to file to avoid collisions
ForEach ($Parent in $ParentFolders) {
Get-ChildItem -Path $Parent.FullName -Recurse | Where-Object {!$_.PSIsContainer -and ($_.DirectoryName -ne $Parent.FullName)} | ForEach-Object {
$FileInc = 1
Do {
If ($FileInc -eq 1) {$MovePath = Join-Path -Path $Parent.FullName -ChildPath $_.Name}
Else {$MovePath = Join-Path -Path $Parent.FullName -ChildPath "$($_.BaseName)($FileInc)$($_.Extension)"}
$FileInc++
}
While (Test-Path -Path $MovePath -PathType Leaf)
Move-Item -Path $_.FullName -Destination $MovePath
}
}
$filesandfolders | Where-Object {$_.PsIscontainer} | foreach {
$New=$_.name -Replace $regex
Rename-Item -path $_.Fullname -newname $New -passthru
}
# For this to work, we need to temporarily append a file extension to the file name
Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse | where-object {!($_.Extension)} | Rename-Item -New {$_.basename+'.ext'}
# Removes alphanumeric subdirectories after moving renamed game into the parent folder
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Directory | ? { -Not ($_.EnumerateFiles('*',1) | Select-Object -First 1) } | Remove-Item -Recurse
# Recursively searches for the files we renamed to .ext and renames it to the parent folder's name
# ie: "B2080E9FFF47FE2DA382BD55EDFCA2152078AEBD58.ext" becomes "0 day Attack on Earth" and will be
# found in the directory of the same name.
ls -Recurse -Filter *.ext | %{
$name = ([IO.DirectoryInfo](Split-Path $_.FullName -Parent)).Name
Rename-Item -Path $_.FullName -NewName "$($name)"
}
} else {
{Exit}
}
I have tried using $ParentFolders in varying places so that it uses $RootPath as the working directory. I have also tried copy/pasting the "file inc" part in the final step but it is not working. To test this out, create folder, make this your root folder. Within that folder, create additional folders with multiple subfolders and a file with no extension, just create .txt and remove the extension then run the script from the newly created root folder.
Do not run this in a directory with files you care about. This why I am trying to get the rest of the code to use only the directory set at launch. To test it to see if it is working regardless of the scripts location, place the script in another folder then run it. When the explorer dialog pops up (after clicking yes), select this directory. If you place it in the root directory then run it, it works as it should but not in any other director, which is the desired result, to run and work to completion, regardless of the location of the script.
Here is code to add _1 to filename
$filename = "abcdefg.csv"
$lastIndex = $filename.LastIndexOf('.')
$extension = $filename.Substring($lastIndex)
$filename = $filename.Substring(0,$lastIndex)
Write-Host "filename = " $filename ",extension = " $extension
$filename = $filename + "_1" + $extension
$filename
i'm really new to Powershell (2 days) and i am not good yet. :(
My Question ist:
How to change a character in multiple .txt-files and save/ overwrite the existing file in Powershell
My goal is to Copy multiple RAW-Files in a new folder, change the file-name from .tsv to .txt and at least change one character in these files from % to percent.
What i've got so far:
The first two steps are working, but i'm losing my mind with the third step (the replacement).
Copy-Item -Path "C:\Users\user\Desktop\RAW\*.tsv" -Destination "C:\Users\user\Desktop\TXT" -Recurse
Set-Location "C:\Users\User\Desktop\TXT"
Get-ChildItem *.tsv | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace '.tsv','.txt' }
This works fine for me and now i am not able to get further ...
I am able to replace the "%" in one specific file, and save it in a new file, but this doesn't work for a batch processing with changing file-names.
$file = "A.txt"
Get-Content $file | Foreach {$_ -replace "%", "percent"} | Set-Content A_1.txt
It would be perfect, if "$file = "A.txt"" would be "all the files in this path with .txt" and
"Set-Content A_1.txt" would be "overwrite the existing file".
I hope someone will help me, thank you! <3 <3 <3
You already have some of the solution in your first code snippet, you need to iterate over the files again to perform the replace and save.
$txtFiles = Get-ChildItem -Name *.txt
ForEach ($file in $txtFiles) {
(Get-Content $file) | ForEach-Object {
$_ -replace '%','percent'
} | Set-Content $file
}
The first line adds all the text files to an array, the foreach loop iterates over the files of the array and grabs the content of the file and unloads it - that's the reason for the parenthesis, the Foreach-Object then iterates over the content of the file and saves it to the same file name as before.
If you skip the parentheses around Get-Content $file the file would still be loaded into memory and you would get an error message about not being able to save the file.
When using powershell to rename files with their directory name and file name, my code works, except in the first file in a directory, it gives it two copies of the directory name. So the file book1.xlsx in folder folder1 should become folder1book1.xlsx but it becomes folder1folder1book1.xlsx. The remaining files in folder1 are correctly named folder1book2.xlsx, folder1book3.xlsx, etc.
I have a directory, with many sub-directories. In each sub-dir are files that need their sub-dir name added in.
I've been following this code. For me it looks like:
dir -Filter *.xlsx -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Directory.Name + "_" + $_.Name}
I've also tried
--setting the Recurse -Depth 1 so that it doesn't keep looking for folders in the sub-folders.
--using ForEach-Object {$_ | ... after the pipe, similar to this.
--running it in Visual Studio Code rather than directly in PowerShell, which turns it into:
Get-ChildItem "C:\my\dir\here" -Filter *.xls -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.DirectoryName + '_' + $_.Name}
--putting an empty folder inside the sub-directory, setting -Depth 2 to see if that will "catch" the recurse loop
I would expect the files to be named folder1_book1.xlsx, folder1_book2.xlsx, folder1_book3.xlsx.
But all of the attempted changes above give the same result. The first file is named folder1_folder1_book1.xlsx [INCORRECT], folder1_book2.xlsx[CORRECT], folder1_book3.xlsx[CORRECT].
A workaround might be writing an if statement for "not files that contain the sub-directory name" as suggested here. But the link searches for a text string not an object (probably not the correct term) like #_.Directory.Name. This post shows how to concatenate objects but not something like #_.Directory.Name. Having to put in an if statement seems like an unnecessary step if -Recurse worked the way it should, so I'm not sure this workaround gets at the heart of the issue.
I'm running windows 10 with bootcamp on a 2018 iMac (I'm in Windows a lot because I use ArcMap). Powershell 5.1.17134.858. Visual Studio Code 1.38.0. This is a task I would like to learn how to use more in the future, so explanations will help. I'm new to using PowerShell. Thanks in advance!
This was a script I created for one of my customers that may help
<##################################################################################################################################
This script can be used to search through folders to rename files from their
original name to "filename_foldername.extension". To use this script
please configure the items listed below.
Items to Congfigure
-$Original
-$Source
-$Destination
-$Files
Also please change the Out-File date on line 29 to today's date ****Example: 2019-10-02****
We've also added a change log file that is named "FileChange.txt" and can be found in the location identified on line 30
>
$Original="C:\temp\test" #Location of ".cab" files copied
$Source="C:\temp\Test" #Location were ".cab" files are stored
$Destination="C:\temp\Test\2019-10-02" #Location were you want to copy ".cab" files after the file name change. Be sure to change the date to the date you run this script. The script creates a folder with todays date
$Files=#("*.cab") #Choose the file type you want to search for
$ErrorActionPreference = "SilentlyContinue" #Suppress Errors
Get-ChildItem $Original -Include "*.cab" -File -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.BaseName+"_"+$_.Directory.Name +'.cab'}
New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path ".\$((Get-Date).ToString('yyyy-MM-dd'))"; Get-ChildItem -recurse ($Source) -include ($Files) | Copy-Item -Destination ($Destination) -EA SilentlyContinue
Get-ChildItem $Original | Where {$_.LastWriteTime -ge [datetime]::Now.AddMinutes(-10)} | Out-File C:\temp\test\2019-10-02\FileChange.txt
My problem is I want to change paths in INI Files wich are saved in a folder and its subfolders.
The path of the folder is C:\New\Path\.
Example INI file:
notAIniText = C:\A\Path\notAIniText
maybeAIniText = C:\A\Path\maybeAIniText
AIniText = C:\A\Path\AIniText
I read some other questions about PSini but I don't want to just id because I want to use the script on multiple PC and I don't want to install every time PSIni.
I tried:
$mabyIni = "C:\New\Path"
$AiniFile = Get-ChildItem - Path "C:\New\Path\*" -Include *.ini -Recurse
foreach ($file in $AiniFile) {
Select-String -Path $file -AllMatches "C:\A\Path\" | ForEach-Opject {
$file -replace [regex]:Escape('C:\A\Path'), ('$mabyIni')
} | Set-Content $mabyIni -Include *.ini
But this doesn't work. I tried it with Get-Content too, but that also doesn't work.
Is there any way whitout PSini?
The code in your comment is close, but just has a few syntax issues. It starts out strong:
$mabyIni = "C:\New\Path"
$AiniFile = Get-ChildItem - Path "C:\New\Path*" -include *.ini -recurse
ForEach($file in $AiniFile) {
So far, so good. You define the new path, and you get a list of .ini files in the old path, then you start to loop through those files. This is all good code so far. Then things start to go astray.
I see that you are trying to get the contents of each .ini file, replace the string in question, and then output that file to the new path with this:
(Get-Content $AiniFile.PSPath) | ForEach-Object {
$file -replace [regex]:Escape('C:\A\Path'),('$mabyIni')
}| Set-Content $mabyIni -include *.ini
Unfortunately you're using the wrong variables, and adding in an extra ForEach loop in there as well. Let's start with the Get-Content line. At this point in the script you are looping through files, with each current file being represented by $file. So what you really want to get the contents of is $file, and not $AiniFile.PSPath.
(Get-Content $file)
Ok, that got us the contents of that file as an array of strings. Now, I'm guessing you weren't aware, but the -Replace operator works on arrays of strings. Perfect, we just so happen to have gotten an array of strings! Since the Get-Content command is wrapped in parenthesis it completes first, we can actually just tack on the -Replace command right after it.
(Get-Content $file) -replace [regex]:Escape('C:\A\Path'),$mabyIni
Your -replace command that you had was super close! In fact, I have to give you props for using [regex]::escape() in there. That's totally a pro move, well done! The only issue with it is the replacement string didn't need to be in parenthesis, and it was single quoted, so it would not have expanded the string and your .ini files would have all had a line like:
AIniText = $mabyIni\AIniText
Not exactly what you wanted I'm guessing, so I removed the parenthesis (they weren't hurting anything, but weren't helping either, so for cleanliness and simplicity I got rid of them), and I got rid of the single quotes ' as well since we really just want the string that's stored in that variable.
So now we're looping through files, reading the contents, replacing the old path with the new path, all that's left is to output the new .ini file. It looks like they're already in place, so we just use the existing path for the file, and set the content to the updated data.
(Get-Content $file) -replace [regex]:Escape('C:\A\Path'),$mabyIni | Set-Content -Path $File.FullName
Ok, done! You just have to close the ForEach loop, and run it.
$mabyIni = "C:\New\Path"
$AiniFile = Get-ChildItem - Path "C:\New\Path*" -include *.ini -recurse
ForEach($file in $AiniFile) {
(Get-Content $file) -replace [regex]:Escape('C:\A\Path'),$mabyIni | Set-Content -Path $File.FullName
}
I have a small problem. I want to search a directory ,lets say D:\ . I want to find the files with the extention .vsxproj. Then I can do 2 things.
1. Access a node called project properties and change a single word amongst a string.
2. Or, just replace the word from the entire file without searching specific node. This is easier and would serve my purpose.
Now for the actual code. I have tried the following.
(Get-Content D:\data123.xml) |
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "Wow32", "Wow3232" } |
Set-Content D:\data123.xml
This works for a single file if I know the name. But i have more than a hundred file.So I try something like this.I go to my D drive and do this:
$configFiles = Get-ChildItem . *.vsxproj -rec
foreach ($file in $configFiles)
{
(Get-Content $file.PSPath) |
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "Wow32", "Wow3232" } |
Set-Content $file.PSPath
}
Please let me know how can I recurse over several file and change this one word. I have searched and looked at quite a few answers.None of them actually solves my problem. Please help.