Powershell V3 (there is a TL;DR version at the bottom of the full description)
I am a little new to coding but adapting with the times, and practicing by solving / making more efficient some tasks at work - I am currently writing a script to automate a daily file management task (there's already a batch file, but that's not educational!). I want to write a powershell script that is easy for a future administrator to troubleshoot/adapt if necessary and include Best Practices techniques such as meaningful error messages.
This one is a little tricky, or really simple if I'm missing something....
In MS-DOS, what I want to do would be pretty simple because destination sources accept wild-cards on the extension of files.
example (file structure is below): copy Group01.* RnGrp01.*
I could brute force every item in the directory, since the start of the name never changes, just the extension... but that would be way too many code lines and annoying for a future admin since they'd have to upkeep it whenever additional files were added to the directory.
Directory (Child) Items Example: Note: x, y, and z are numbers - these numbers will go from variable numbers from 100 to 500
Group01.x.3
Group02.y.3
Group03.z.3
I need to keep all files with the START of name Group01 together, and all files with Group02 together, and all files with Group03 together - and rename them to have a different name, while keeping the number contained within x, y, and z the same.
Further example - expected result after running:
Group01.100.3 -> RnGrp01.100.3
Group01.101.3 -> RnGrp01.101.3
Group02.100.3 -> RnGrp02.100.3
Group02.101.3 -> RnGrp02.101.3
Group03.100.3 -> RnGrp03.100.3
Group03.101.3 -> RnGrp03.101.3
What I tried that almost worked ($datestamp is a get-date.tostring and works perfect, tested through write-hosts):
Get-ChildItem $dest\Group01.* | foreach {Rename-Item $_ $_.Name.Replace("Group01","$datestamp_RnGrp01")}
Get-ChildItem $dest\Group02.* | foreach {Rename-Item $_ $_.Name.Replace("Group02","$datestamp_RnGrp02")}
Get-ChildItem $dest\Group03.* | foreach {Rename-Item $_ $_.Name.Replace("Group03","$datestamp_RnGrp03")}
-----> THIS KIND OF ALMOST WORKED. The result was 2 files and an error
Rename-Item : Cannot create a file when that file already exists.
The 2 files:
.100.3
.101.3
so it kept the extensions but removed the name entirely... which is just weird.
WHAT I TRIED THAT DIDN'T WORK, THAT I THOUGHT SHOULD: (brute-force, kind of, but still scalable for the environment its being used in):
Get-ChildItem "$dest\Group01.*" | Copy-Item -Dest {"$dest\$datestamp_majsales.${_}"}
- this throws a directory error, even though the directory is valid.
TL:DR version:
MS-DOS code:
copy Group01.* %dateformula%_RnGrp01.*
copy Group02.* %dateformula%_RnGrp02.*
copy Group03.* %dateformula%_RnGrp03.*
Further example - expected result after running:
Group01.100.3 -> RnGrp01.100.3
Group01.101.3 -> RnGrp01.101.3
Group02.100.3 -> RnGrp02.100.3
Group02.101.3 -> RnGrp02.101.3
Group03.100.3 -> RnGrp03.100.3
Group03.101.3 -> RnGrp03.101.3
Does not work:
Get-ChildItem $dest\Group01.* | foreach {Rename-Item $_ $_.Name.Replace("Group01","$datestamp_RnGrp01")}
Get-ChildItem $dest\Group02.* | foreach {Rename-Item $_ $_.Name.Replace("Group02","$datestamp_RnGrp02")}
Get-ChildItem $dest\Group03.* | foreach {Rename-Item $_ $_.Name.Replace("Group03","$datestamp_RnGrp03")}
Please help.
