Select-String pattern not matching

Question

I have the text of a couple hundred Word documents saved into individual .txt files in a folder. I am having an issue where a MergeField in the Word document wasn't formatted correctly, and now I need to find all the instances in the folder where the incorrect formatting occurs. the incorrect formatting is the string \#,$##,##0.00\* So, I'm trying to use PowerShell as follows:

select-string -path MY_PATH\.*txt -pattern '\#,$##,##0.00\*'
select-string -path MY_PATH\.*txt -pattern "\#`,`$##`,##0.00\*"

But neither of those commands finds any results, even though I'm sure the string exists in at least one file. I feel like the error is occurring because there are special characters in the parameter (specifically $ and ,) that I'm not escaping correctly, but I'm not sure how else to format the pattern. Any suggestions?

Matt · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-23 17:32:16Z

3

If you are actually looking for \#,$##,##0.00\* then you need to be aware that Select-String uses regex and you have a lot of control characters in there. Your string should be

\\\#,\$\#\#,\#\#0\.00\\\*

Or you can use the static method Escape of regex to do the dirty work for you.

[regex]::Escape("\#,$##,##0.00\*")

To put this all together you would get the following:

select-string -path MY_PATH\.*txt -pattern ([regex]::Escape("\#,$##,##0.00\*"))

Or even simpler would be to use the parameter -SimpleMatch since it does not interpet the string .. just searches as is. More here

select-string -path MY_PATH\.*txt -SimpleMatch "\#,$##,##0.00\*"

edited Dec 23, 2014 at 17:32

answered Dec 23, 2014 at 16:50

Matt

47k9 gold badges90 silver badges125 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Micky Balladelli · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-23 16:55:29Z

1

My try, similar to Matts:

select-string -path .\*.txt -pattern '\\#,\$##,##0\.00\\\*'

result:

test.txt:1:\#,$##,##0.00\*

answered Dec 23, 2014 at 16:55

Micky Balladelli

10k2 gold badges36 silver badges31 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Select-String pattern not matching

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related