Replacing strings in PowerShell: "-"

Question

I know this topic has been widely discussed here, but I am newbie on PowerShell and facing some hurdles to replace a symbol in the table.

In the picture below there some symbols "-" in the numeric column "PRECOMEDIODISTRIBUICAO".

I ran the following code in order to replace such symbols to "0" number:

$file = Import-Csv -Path $file -Delimiter "`t" | 
Select PRECOMEDIODISTRIBUICAO | ForEach {$_ -Replace "\?_", 0}

But got the following result:

I tried different ways to replace "-" symbol to 0, but got no success. For example: "-", "- ", "\ - " , " - " generated no correction.

Do you have a better idea how to replace such string?

If you want to replace the - character, why are you replacing \?_? — Mike 'Pomax' Kamermans
– Mike 'Pomax' Kamermans, Commented Jul 20, 2018 at 17:14

TessellatingHeckler · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-20 19:24:51Z

4

Try:

Import-Csv -Path $file -Delimiter "`t" | ForEach {

    $_.PRECOMEDIODISTRIBUICAO = $_.PRECOMEDIODISTRIBUICAO -Replace '-', '0'
    $_
}

Your Select PRECOMEDIODISTRIBUICAO is (should be!) throwing away the other columns, and your replace on $_ -replace is trying to cast the whole object and all its properties into one string, then do the replace, then not save the replaced text anywhere. I don't know what the \? in the regex is doing, but it doesn't look necessary.

edited Jul 20, 2018 at 19:24

user6811411

answered Jul 20, 2018 at 17:13

TessellatingHeckler

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2 Comments

user6811411 Over a year ago

In case there could be negative numbers, I'd -Replace '^-$','0'

Petter_M Over a year ago

That's weird...the same error persisted even after declaring the column name.

Pulkownik · Accepted Answer · 2018-07-20 18:52:22Z

3

You can dynamically modify strings using code below. 'l' means label and e stand for expression. In the expression you do almost anything with the passed value. In this example replace '-' by 0

Import-Csv -Path $file -Delimiter "`t" |Select @{l="PRECOMEDIODISTRIBUICAO";e={$_.PRECOMEDIODISTRIBUICAO -replace '-', 0}}

edited Jul 20, 2018 at 18:52

answered Jul 20, 2018 at 17:36

Pulkownik

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