Powershell – replace characters
Another one and I ended up sticking a load of notes on this for myself
Get-Item “\\SERVERNAME\files\All – all general shared files\April 2020 – Rents and service charges\Archive*.pdf” | ForEach-Object {
Rename-Item $_ ($_.Name -replace “-“, ” “) -WhatIf }
So here are my notes on the command.
Get-Item : We’re getting the contents of the folder on SERVERNAME and looking at all files ending in .pdf
We have to put the path in “” because the folder name has spaces.
We then pipe this with the pipe command (cause it looks like a pipe) | to the ForEach-Object loop. The pipe command means you pass the results of what was just to the left of it, to the next command on its right.
ForEach-Object takes each file, from the Get-Item command and with Rename-Item stores each file’s name in the Powershell global variable $_. You use that global variable because its easy, its short (typing wise) and you don’t have to declare it at the top of your script like other variables. So less code. The $_. global variable is built into Powershell.
The $_.Name takes the contents stored in Global Variable $_ and adds it to name with the (in this case) – removed from all the files that had it and replaced with a space. That is what “-” ” ” are. You’re looking for “-” in the file name and replacing with ” ” space.
The whatif is only there so the command doesn’t actually change anything, it just shows what would happen if the command ran, it can be removed once you know the script works.
