Replace the content of a textfile with a regex in powershell
Yes, you can do that in one line and don't even need a pipeline, as -replace
works on arrays like you would expect it to do (and you can chain the operator):
(Get-Content Input.json) ` -replace '"(\d+),(\d{1,})"', '$1.$2' ` -replace 'second regex', 'second replacement' | Out-File output.json
(Line breaks added for readability.)
The parentheses around the Get-Content
call are necessary to prevent the -replace
operator being interpreted as an argument to Get-Content
.
Is it possible to write it in one line without the content variable, like this?
Yes: use ForEach-Object
(or its alias %
) and then $_
to reference the object on the pipeline:
Get-Content -path "Input.json" | % { $_ -Replace '"(\d+),(\d{1,})"', '$1.$2' } | Out-File "output.json"
Is it possible to do more replacements than one in a pipeline.
Yes.
- As above: just adding more
Foreach-Object
segments. As
-replace
returns the result, they can be chained in a single expression:($_ -replace $a,$b) -replace $c,$d
I suspect the parentheses are not needed, but I think they make it easier to read: clearlymore than a few chained operators (especially if the match/replacements are non-trivial) willnot be clear.