using replace to clean up select-string input

Question

I am parsing logs and grabbing output, but I want to clean up the out put. currently I am getting the full path of the log file in the output which is long and not needed. The code below is what I am trying to use, but I am getting an error that my replace is not a valid regular expression.

select-string $_ -pattern "gam.exe : Error 409: Entity already exists" -context 1,0 | ForEach-Object{$_ -replace "D:\test1\user\mail\mail-Load\logs","" }

I am not sure what I need to do to get the input for replace right, do I need to escape characters?

I just did, but it did not seem to change the error. it does not like "D:\test1\user\mail\mail-Load\logs","" or 'D:\test1\user\mail\mail-Load\logs',"" — JoehB.
– JoehB., Commented Mar 25, 2014 at 16:24

mjolinor · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-25 16:28:01Z

1

The backslash is the regex escape character. To use it as part of a literal match in the regex, it must be escaped with another backslash. If you're not sure what characters need to be escaped, [regex] has an escape method you can use that will escape all the reserved characters for you:

[regex]::escape("D:\test1\user\mail\mail-Load\logs")
D:\\test1\\user\\mail\\mail-Load\\logs

So

 'D:\\test1\\user\\mail\\mail-Load\\logs'

is the regex you would use to match the literal string

'D:\test1\user\mail\mail-Load\logs'

answered Mar 25, 2014 at 16:28

mjolinor

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JoehB. Over a year ago

that worked, I just needed to escape the \ and it is now filtering properly. Thank you

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