Vista - Multiple -replaces

Is there a way to pipe the output of a replace statement into another replace
statement? The following works, but I was hoping to eliminate the multiple
file read/writes by Get/Set-Content.

(Get-Content file.txt) | -replace "old string", "new string" | Set-Content
file.txt
(Get-Content file.txt) | -replace "old string1", "new string1" | Set-Content
file.txt

Do you mean something like this?

gc file.txt | foreach {
( $_ -replace "old string", "new string" ) -replace "old string1",
"new string1"
} | sc file.txt

--
greetings
dreeschkind

"David" wrote:

> Is there a way to pipe the output of a replace statement into another replace
> statement? The following works, but I was hoping to eliminate the multiple
> file read/writes by Get/Set-Content.
>
> (Get-Content file.txt) | -replace "old string", "new string" | Set-Content
> file.txt
> (Get-Content file.txt) | -replace "old string1", "new string1" | Set-Content
> file.txt

You can also use the switch statement, here are two approaches:

${c:file.txt} = $(switch -regex (${c:file.txt}) {
'old string' {$_ -replace $matches[0],'new string'}
'old string1' {$_ -replace $matches[0], 'new string1'}
default {$_}})

sc file.txt $(switch -regex -file ./file.txt {
'old string' {$_ -replace $matches[0],'new string'}
'old string1' {$_ -replace $matches[0], 'new string1'}
default {$_}})

--
Kiron

Exactly!

Thank You

"dreeschkind" wrote:

> Do you mean something like this?

Either switch approach does not replace more than one pattern on each line.
Here's a way of that does, it uses corresponding pattern/substitution
arrays:

$pat = 'oldString0', 'oldString1'
$sub = 'newString0', 'newString1'

${c:file.txt} = ${c:file.txt} | % {
$i = 0; while ($i -lt $pat.length) {
$_ = $_ -replace $pat[$i], $sub[$i]; $i++} $_}

--
Kiron

"Kiron" wrote:

> Either switch approach does not replace more than one pattern on each line.
> Here's a way of that does, it uses corresponding pattern/substitution
> arrays:
>
> $pat = 'oldString0', 'oldString1'
> $sub = 'newString0', 'newString1'
>
> ${c:file.txt} = ${c:file.txt} | % {
> $i = 0; while ($i -lt $pat.length) {
> $_ = $_ -replace $pat[$i], $sub[$i]; $i++} $_}
>
> --
> Kiron
>

Thanks for the tip. That works nicely with hashtables, too:

$replace = @{"OLD1"="NEW1"; "OLD2"="NEW2"}

${c:file.txt} = ${c:file.txt} | % {
foreach ($key in $replace.keys) {$_ = $_ -replace $key, $replace[$key]}
$_
}

-Hecks

Just a performace note:

I coded the four different methods suggested (by the way, Thank You) for
multiple replaces and used Measure-Command to obtain some exec times.

dreeschkind's foreach - 8.28 secs
Kiron's switch ${c:file.txt} - 0.61 secs
Kiron's switch sc file.txt - 0.65 secs
Kiron's pattern/substitution - 6.1 secs

"Kiron" wrote:

> Either switch approach does not replace more than one pattern on each line.
> Here's a way of that does, it uses corresponding pattern/substitution
> arrays:
>
> $pat = 'oldString0', 'oldString1'
> $sub = 'newString0', 'newString1'
>
> ${c:file.txt} = ${c:file.txt} | % {
> $i = 0; while ($i -lt $pat.length) {
> $_ = $_ -replace $pat[$i], $sub[$i]; $i++} $_}
>
> --
> Kiron
>

Thanks for the execution times. According to them the Switch with 'variable
namespace notation' ${c:file.txt} approach is the way to go for single
pattern per line and the pattern/substitution for multiple patterns per
line, but you did not measure Hecks' hash table which, according to some
test of my own, shaves some time off the pattern/substitution.

--
Kiron

Nicely? Yes. It seems to be faster than the pattern/substitution. Thanks.

--
Kiron

This is even easier than you think :-) There are two features that help
here. First the replace operator works on collections. Second,
composing -replace operations just works. Here's an example. We'll start
with a file containing 3 lines:

PS (1) > gc text.txt
abc
abc
abc

Now we want to replace "a" with "A"

PS (2) > (gc text.txt) -replace "a","A"
Abc
Abc
Abc

Next, take the result of that operation, and replace "b" in the new
collection with "-b-".

PS (3) > (gc text.txt) -replace "a","A" -replace "b","-b-"
A-b-c
A-b-c
A-b-c

And finally, we'll replace "c" with "CCC"

PS (4) > (gc text.txt) -replace "a","A" -replace "b","-b-" -replace
"c","CCC"
A-b-CCC
A-b-CCC
A-b-CCC

Now let's save the result into a file using Set-Content:

PS (5) > (gc text.txt) -replace "a","A" -replace "b","-b-" -replace
"c","CCC" | sc text.txt

And verify that the file has been changed:

PS (6) > gc text.txt
A-b-CCC
A-b-CCC
A-b-CCC

and it has. So, as we've seen, composing replace operations is very simple.

-bruce
--
Bruce Payette [MSFT]
Windows PowerShell Technical Lead
Microsoft Corporation
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"David" <David@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:BBFA3580-EC26-411A-809E-E4212D1B3DEF@microsoft.com...
> Is there a way to pipe the output of a replace statement into another
> replace
> statement? The following works, but I was hoping to eliminate the multiple
> file read/writes by Get/Set-Content.
>
> (Get-Content file.txt) | -replace "old string", "new string" | Set-Content
> file.txt
> (Get-Content file.txt) | -replace "old string1", "new string1" |
> Set-Content
> file.txt