Problem:
Update a specific string within numerous configuration files that are found within the subfolders of a partial path using PowerShell.
Expanded Details:
I have multiple configuration files that need a specific string to be updated; however, I do not know the name of these files and must begin my search from a partial path. I must scan each file for the specific string. Then I must replace the old string with the new string, but I must make sure it saves the file with its original name and in the same location it was found. I must also be able to display the results of the script (number of files affected and their names/path). Lastly, this must all be done in PowerShell.
So far I have come up with the following on my own:
$old = "string1"
$new = "string2"
$configs = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\*\foldername\*.config -Recurse
$configs | %{(Get-Content $_) -Replace $old, $new | Set-Content $_FullName
When I run this, something seems to happen.
If the files are open, they will tell me that they were modified by another program.
However, nothing seems to have changed.
I have attempted various modifications of the below code as well. To my dismay, it only seems to be opening and saving each file rather than actually making the change I want to happen.
$configFiles = GCI -Path C:\*\Somefolder\*.config -Recurse
foreach ($config in $configFiles) {
(GC $config.PSPath) | ForEach-Object {
$_ -Replace "oldString", "newString"
} | Set-Content $config.PSPath)
}
To further exasperate the issue, all of my attempts to perform a simple search against the specified string seems to be posing me issues as well.
Discussing with several others, and based on what have learned via SO... the following code SHOULD return results:
GCI -Path C:\*\Somefolder\*.config -Recurse |
Select-String -Pattern "string" |
Select Name
However, nothing seems to happen. I do not know if I am missing something or if the code itself is wrong...
Some questions I have researched and tried that are similar can be found at the below links:
UPDATE:
It is possible that I am being thwarted by special characters such as
+ and /. For example, my string might be: "s+r/ng"
I have applied the escape character that PowerShell says to use, but it seems this is not helping either.
Replacing a text at specified line number of a file using powershell
Find and replacing strings in multiple files
PowerShell Script to Find and Replace for all Files with a Specific Extension
Powershell to replace text in multiple files stored in many folders
I will continue my research and continue making modifications. I'll be sure to notate anything that get's me to my goal or even a step closer. Thank you all in advance.
Related
I am using a program to export hundreds of rows in an Excel sheet into separate documents, but the problem is that a PLC will be reading the files and they only save in (macintosh).csv with no option for windows. Is there a way to bulk convert multiple files with different names into the correct format?
I have used this code for a single file but I do not have the knowledge to use it for multiple in a directory
$path = 'c:\filename.csv';
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllText($path.Remove($path.Length-3)+'txt',[System.IO.File]::ReadAllText($path).Replace("`n","`r`n"));
Thank you
The general PowerShell idiom for processing multiple files one by one:
Use Get-ChildItem (or Get-Item) to enumerate the files of interest, as System.IO.FileInfo instances.
Pipe the result to a ForEach-Object call, whose script-block argument ({ ... }) is invoked once for each input object received via the pipeline, reflected in the automatic $_ variable.
Specifically, since you're calling .NET API methods, be sure to pass full, file-system-native file paths to them, because .NET's working directory usually differs from PowerShell's. $_.FullName does that.
Therefore:
Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath C:\ -Filter *.csv |
ForEach-Object {
[IO.File]::WriteAllText(
[IO.Path]::ChangeExtension($_.FullName, 'txt'),
[IO.File]::ReadAllText($_.FullName).Replace("`n", "`r`n")
)
}
Note:
In PowerShell type literals such as [System.IO.File], the System. part is optional and can be omitted, as shown above.
[System.IO.Path]::ChangeExtension(), as used above, is a more robust way to obtain a copy of a path with the original file-name extension changed to a given one.
While Get-ChildItem -Path C:\*.csv or even Get-ChildItem C:\*.csv would work too (Get-ChildItem's first positional parameter is -Path), -Filter, as shown above, is usually preferable for performance reasons.
Caveat: While -Filter is typically sufficient, it does not use PowerShell's wildcard language, but delegates matching to the host platform's file-system APIs. This means that range or character-set expressions such as [0-9] and [fg] are not supported, and, on Windows, several legacy quirks affect the matching behavior - see this answer for more information.
I have a process where files containing data are generated in separate locations, saved to a networked location, and merged into a single file.
And the end of the process, I would like to check that all locations are present in that merged file, and notify me if not.
I am having a problem finding a way to identify that a string specific to each location isn't present, to be used in an if statement, but it doesn't seem to be identifying the string correctly?
I have tried :
get-childitem -filter *daily.csv.ready \\x.x.x.x\data\* -recurse | where-object {$_ -notin 'D,KPI,KPI,1,'}
I know it's probably easier to do nothing if it is present, and perform the warning action if not, but I'm curious if this can be done in the reverse.
Thank you,
As Doug Maurer points out, your command does not search through the content of the files output by the Get-ChildItem command, because what that cmdlet emits are System.IO.FileInfo (or, potentially, System.IO.DirectoryInfo) instances containing metadata about the matching files (directories) rather than their content.
In other words: the automatic $_ variable in your Where-Object command refers to an object describing a file rather than its content.
However, you can pipe System.IO.FileInfo instances to the Select-String cmdlet, which indeed searches the input files' content:
Get-ChildItem -Filter *daily.csv.ready \\x.x.x.x\data\* -Recurse |
Where-Object { $_ | Select-String -Quiet -NotMatch 'D,KPI,KPI,1,' }
My google-fu has failed me, so I'd love to get some help with this issue. I have a directory full of markup files (extension .xft). I need to modify these files by adding string literals and the filename (without the file extension) to each file.
For example, I currently have:
<headerTag>
<otherTag>Some text here </otherTag>
<finalTag> More text </finalTag>
What I need to end up with is:
<modifiedHeaderTag>
<secondTag> filenameGoesHere </secondTag>
<otherTag>Some text here </otherTag>
<finalTag> More text </finalTag>
So in this example,
"<modifiedHeaderTag>
<secondTag>"
would be my first string literal (this is a constant that gets inserted into each file in the same place),
filenameGoesHere
would be the variable string (the name of each file) and,
"</secondTag>"
would be my second constant string literal.
I was able to successfully replace text using:
(Get-Content *.xft).Replace("<headerTag>", "<modifiedHeaderTag>")
However, when I tried
(Get-Content *.xft).Replace("<headerTag>", "<modifiedHeaderTag> `n
<secondTag> $($_.Name) </secondTag>")
I just got an error message. Replacing $($_.Name) with ${$_.Name) also had no effect.
I've tried other things, but this method was the closest that I had gotten to success. I would appreciate any help that I can get. It's probably simple and I'm just not seeing something due to inexperience with Powershell, so a helping hand would be great.
If the above isn't clear enough, I'd be happy to provide more info, just let me know. Thanks everyone!
Here's my approach, assuming you have all of the XFT's in one folder and you want to write the updates back to the same file:
$path = "C:\XFTs_to_Modify"
$xfts = Get-ChildItem $path -Include "*.xft"
foreach ($xft in $xfts) {
$replace = "<modifiedHeaderTag>
<secondTag> $($xft.Name) </secondTag>"
(Get-Content *.xft).Replace("<headerTag>", $replace) | Set-Content $xft.FullName -Force
}
I have several batch files i need to alter.
looping through the files and replacing works fine.
I just cant figure out how to have a single line like
net use w: \\someserver\someshare
replaced by two lines
net use w: /delete /yes
net use w: \\someotherserver\someshare
is this at all possible with replace and regular expressions?
Or do i have to store the driveletter in a variable to accomplish this?
thanks,
Yes, that is possible with -replace:
$yourFilePath = 'PATH_TO_YOUR_FILE'
$content = Get-Content $yourFilePath
$content -replace '^net use (\w): .*', "net use `$1: /delete /yes `n`$0" | Set-Content $yourFilePath
The script adds the desired line to your file and uses the particualr drive, but doesn't check, whether the line (net use drive: /delete /yes) already exist.
Please help. Trying to figure out how to replace a string in PowerShell, but don't know the rest of the string. I have this:
(Get-Content $file) -replace[regex]::Escape('file='*''),('file='+$_.BaseName) | Set-Content $file
I don't know what comes after file=
I tried my code, but it replaces it multiple times instead of just once.
So trying to replace file=* with filename=$_.BaseName.
Thanks for looking.
Just an FYI for anyone using the latest version of PowerShell Community Extensions (http://pscx.codeplex.com), there is a new command called Edit-File that handles this sort of thing nicely (works hard to preserve the file's original encoding):
Get-Item test.txt | Foreach {$bn=$_.BaseName; $_} |
Edit-File -Pattern '(file=).*' -Replace "`${1}$bn"
In theory I shouldn't need the Foreach stage but it seems I've found a limitation in how -PipelineVariable does not work with parameters that aren't pipeline bound. Hmm, add that to the Pscx backlog.