How to replace "\" with "\\" using powershell?

Question

I am having a string which contains path.

$Paths = "Myfolder\Mysubfolder"

I need to replace them like "Myfolder\Mysubfolder"

But the $Paths -replace "\","\\" fails as regular expression is unable to find and replace "\".

How to replace then?

Matt · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-23 16:35:18Z

8

You can use .Replace() which does not use regular expressions like this:

$Paths = "Myfolder\Mysubfolder"
$Paths.replace('\','\\')

To use -replace you will need to escape the slash, since it is regex, on the match and not the substitution with the exception of $1 and $2 ...etc which are used a substitution groups.

$Paths -replace '\\','\\'

Result from both is:

Myfolder\\Mysubfolder

edited Dec 23, 2014 at 16:35

Matt

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answered Dec 13, 2014 at 14:53

Micky Balladelli

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2 Comments

Matt Over a year ago

Hey Micky.... please try and make your answers with a little more explanation than "try this" or "does this work"

Keith Hill Over a year ago

The substitution string does use a few (one?) regex metacharacters for specifying substitution groups such as $1 $2.

Allan F · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-01 05:49:28Z

0

I'm thinking an = assignment is required?

$Paths = "Myfolder\Mysubfolder"
write-Host "debug ..... : $Paths"
$Paths = $Paths.Replace("\","\\")
write-Host "debug ..... : $Paths"

This gives:

debug ..... : Myfolder\Mysubfolder
debug ..... : Myfolder\\Mysubfolder

answered Dec 1, 2020 at 5:49

Allan F

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