I'm new to powershell and wanted to know if there's a way to remove a character from a file name. The character I'm trying to remove is a dash "-" and sometimes there are 2 or 3 dashes in the file name. Is it possible to have it rename files that have a dash in them?
Get-Item .\some-file-with-hyphens.txt | ForEach-Object {
Rename-Item $_ ($_.Name -replace "-", "")
}
This question may be more suitable for SuperUser.
To remove or replace characters in a file name use single quotes ' and for "special" characters escape them with a backslash \ so the regular expression parser takes it literally.
The following removes the $ (dollar sign) from all file names in your current directory:
Get-Item * | ForEach-Object { rename-item $_ ($_.Name -replace '\$', '') }
the following is the same as above using the shorter alias for each command:
gi * | % { rni $_ ($_.Name -replace '\$', '') }
The following is removing the standard character "Z" from all file names in your current directory:
gi * | % { rni $_ ($_.Name -replace 'Z', '') }
Related
I have a text file that I would like to read and do some replacements using powershell only if the line starts with a specific character.
SAy i want to change all the dash (-) to an 'x' if and only if the line starts with a y.
I tried using the command
(Get-Content trial.log2) | Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "-", 'x'} | Set-Content trial.log2
However, it actually replaces all occurrences of the dash, not only for the line the starts with a y.
Can this be also done if I want to have multiple find replace and string manipulation using one get content command?
I have another string manipulation but only if it starts with an F
If line starts with an F, then get first 4 characters of the line, then append 'NEW' then get the next characters from character 20 to 30.
if line starts with a y, then do a replace of - with an X.
$F=(get-content $file) -like 'F*'
(Get-Content $file) | Foreach-Object {
$_ -replace "^F.+", -join("$F".Substring(0,4), "$NEW3",
} | Set-Content trial.log2
Get-Content trial.log2 | ForEach-Object {
if ( $_ -match '^y' ) {
$_ -replace '-', 'X'
}
else {
$_
}
} | Set-Content trial.log3
However, if i do this, texts are being written twice. I think there is something wrong with how I look for the line that starts with the F
Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
You can use a look-behind ((?<=pattern)) to assert that the preceding characters include a y following the start of the string:
(Get-Content trial.log2) | Foreach-Object {$_ -replace '(?<=^y.*)-','x'} | Set-Content trial.log2
How about something like:
Get-Content trial.log2 | ForEach-Object {
if ( $_ -match '^y' ) {
$_ -replace '-', 'x'
}
else {
$_
}
} | Out-File trial.log2.temp
I found similar commands to these online. I want to replace the parenthesis in my file names to either a space or empty string.
The files I'm trying to change look like the following:
Nehemiah (1).mp3
Nehemiah (2).mp3
Nehemiah (11).mp3
Really I'd like them too look like the following:
Nehemiah 01.mp3
Nehemiah 02.mp3
Nehemiah 11.mp3
Here are the scripts I've tried.
Dir | Rename-Item –NewName { $_.name –replace “(“,”” }
Dir *.mp3 | rename-item -newname { $_.name -replace " ("," " }
Neither of these work.
Here is the error message I'm getting.
Rename-Item : The input to the script block for parameter 'NewName'
failed. The regular expression pattern ( is not valid. At line:1
char:34
+ Dir *.mp3 | rename-item -newname { $_.name -replace " ("," " }
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (C:\Users...ehemiah (1).mp3:PSObject) [Rename-Item], Parameter ndingException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ScriptBlockArgumentInvocationFailed,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RenameItemCommand
As you have seen in the comments from Mathias R Jessen -replace supports regular expressions and you need to account for that. The static method Escape can help automatically escape regex meta characters in strings so that the can appear more readable and function as you see them.
I did manage to find this on MSDN that talks about the characters that are escaped using [regex]::escape():
Escapes a minimal set of characters (\, *, +, ?, |, {, [, (,), ^, $,., #, and white space) by replacing them with their escape codes. This instructs the regular expression engine to interpret these characters literally rather than as metacharacters.
However since you don't actually need to be using regex here I would suggest you use the string method .replace() as that will accomplish the same without the extra overhead.
Get-ChildItem "*.mp3" | Rename-Item -NewName {($_.name).Replace(" ("," ")}
Character padding changes things a little though. I would op for regex there since it is a lot easier that splitting strings and putting them back together.
Get-ChildItem "*.mp3" |
Where-Object{$_.name -match "\((\d+)\)"}
Rename-Item -NewName {
[regex]::Replace($_.Name,"\((\d+)\)",{param($match) ($match.Groups[1].Value).PadLeft(2,"0")})
}
Thanks to PetSerAl for helping with this backreference replacement solution.
I'm sure this can probably be done in a simpler manner, but it works for me.
[regex]$rxp = '\((\d+)\)'; gci | ?{$_.Name -match $rxp} | %{ ren $_.FullName ($_.name -replace $rxp, $matches[1].padLeft(2,'0')) }
Here's a breakdown:
# Define regex. The outer parentheses are literal. The inner are a
# capture group, capturing the track number in the filename.
[regex]$rxp = '\((\d+)\)'
# Get-ChildItems. For each child item that matches the regex...
gci | ?{$_.Name -match $rxp} | %{
# Rename the file, replacing the offending regex match with the match
# obtained from the where-object selector (the ? block)
ren $_.FullName ($_.name -replace $rxp, $matches[1].padLeft(2,'0'))
}
PowerShell doesn't make it easy to massage the data captured by a backreference. However, the -match operator populates a $matches array which can be manipulated more easily.
This makes it possible not only to remove the parentheses, but also to zero pad your single-digit numbers.
Try this.
ls | Where {$_.FullName -match '(-)'} | Rename-Item -NewName { $_ -replace ("-","_") }
I'm listing every file in the directory that matches (contains) a dash - then I pipe that into Rename-Item with new-name replacing the - for an underscore _
PS: The bonus is, I can quickly put back the dash from the underscore.
I have a large list of names and certain filed tied to each name such as:
First_Last_DOB_RT_... and so on. What I want to do is add a -x to the beginning of the filename. However, let's say the first and last name was: Susy_Sample. In this case simply using the
Dir | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.name -replace "S","-x S"}
will end up converting each instance of S to -x S when I only want the beginning of the file to start with -x. How would can I do that?
Simply replace the beginning of the string with -x:
dir | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace '^', '-x ' }
Another option is to concatenate -x with the name as #PetSerAl suggested:
dir | Rename-Item -NewName { '-x ' + $_.Name }
I'm trying to write a script to find all the periods in the first 11 characters or last 147 characters of each line (lines are fixed width of 193, so I'm attempting to ignore characters 12 through 45).
First I want a script that will just find all the periods from the first or last part of each line, but then if I find them I would like to replace all periods with 0's, but ignore periods on the 12th through 45th line and leaving those in place. It would scan all the *.dat files in the directory and create period free copies in a subfolder. So far I have:
$data = get-content "*.dat"
foreach($line in $data)
{
$line.substring(0,12)
$line.substring(46,147)
}
Then I run this with > Output.txt then do a select-string Output.txt -pattern ".". As you can see I'm a long ways from my goal as presently my program is mashing all the files together, and I haven't figured out how to do any replacement yet.
Get-Item *.dat |
ForEach-Object {
$file = $_
$_ |
Get-Content |
ForEach-Object {
$beginning = $_.Substring(0,12) -replace '\.','0'
$middle = $_.Substring(12,44)
$end = $_.Substring(45,147) -replace '\.','0'
'{0}{1}{2}' -f $beginning,$middle,$end
} |
Set-Content -Path (Join-Path $OutputDir $file.Name)
}
You can use the powershell -replace operator to replace the "." with "0". Then use substring as you do to build up the three portions of the string you're interested in to get the updated string. This will output an updated line for each line of your input.
$data = get-content "*.dat"
foreach($line in $data)
{
($line.SubString(0,12) -replace "\.","0") + $line.SubString(13,34) + ($line.substring(46,147) -replace "\.","0")
}
Note that the -replace operator performs a regular expression match and the "." is a special regular expression character so you need to escape it with a "\".
I have a situation that I need to remove some words from all text file in a folder.
I know how to do that only in 1 file, but I need to do it automatically for all text files in that folder. I got no idea at all how to do it in powershell.
The name of the files are random.
Please help.
This is the code
$txt = get-content c:\work\test\01.i
$txt[0] = $txt[0] -replace '-'
$txt[$txt.length - 1 ] = $txt[$txt.length - 1 ] -replace '-'
$txt | set-content c:\work\test\01.i
Basicly it jsut removes a "-" from first line and last line, but i need to do this on all files in the folder.
Get-ChildItem c:\yourfolder -Filter *.txt | Foreach-Object{
... your code goes here ...
... you can access the current file name via $_.FullName ...
}
Here is a full working example:
Get-ChildItem c:\yourdirectory -Filter *.txt | Foreach-Object{
(Get-Content $_.FullName) |
Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "what you want to replace", "what to replace it with"} |
Set-Content $_.FullName
}
Now for a quick explanation:
Get-ChildItem with a Filter: gets all items ending in .txt
1st ForEach-Object: will perform the commands within the curly brackets
Get-Content $_.FullName: grabs the name of the .txt file
2nd ForEach-Object: will perform the replacement of text within the file
Set-Content $_.FullName: replaces the original file with the new file containing the changes
Important Note: -replace is working with a regular expression so if your string of text has any special characters
something like this ?
ls c:\temp\*.txt | %{ $newcontent=(gc $_) -replace "test","toto" |sc $_ }
$files = get-item c:\temp\*.txt
foreach ($file in $files){(Get-Content $file) | ForEach-Object {$_ -replace 'ur word','new word'} | Out-File $file}
I hope this helps.
Use Get-Childitem to filter for the files you want to modify. Per response to previous question "Powershell, like Windows, uses the extension of the file to determine the filetype."
Also:
You will replace ALL "-" with "" on the first and last lines, using what your example shows, IF you use this instead:
$txt[0] = $txt[0] -replace '-', ''
$txt[$txt.length - 1 ] = $txt[$txt.length - 1 ] -replace '-', ''