Copy specific portion of lines from a text file to separate file using powershell

Question

I have one file in which i want to search a text and then i need to find start and end block. Then need to copy to another file. I have multiple statements in the same file.

below is an example.

1: Start
2: hello 
3: Hello world 
4: Good Morning 
5: End

I want to search "Good Morning" and then i want to copy text between start and end block to new file.

What have you tried so far? Also do you want the numbers included in your search or no? — SysEngineer
– SysEngineer, Commented Nov 12, 2018 at 19:07
IF - and that is a big IF - your text is formatted as shown all the time, then take a look at the -Context parameter of Select-String. that accepts one or two [int]s for "lines before, lines after". so -Context 3,1 will grab the 3 lines before the matching line AND the 1 line after it. [grin] ///// take a look at Get-Help Select-String -Parameter Context for more info. — Lee_Dailey
– Lee_Dailey, Commented Nov 12, 2018 at 19:52

score 1 · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-12 20:07:37Z

1

With a regular expression with lookarounds you can find the match
(see the regex live with different escaping \=` )

With your text in a file .\sample.txt, this snippet:

#requires -Version 3.0
[regex]::match((Get-Content .\Sample.txt -raw),"(?sm)(?<=^Start`r?`n).*?Good Morning.*?(?=`r?`nEnd)").Value
#                                                    \  lookbehind /                   \lookahead/

returns

hello
Hello world
Good Morning

edited Nov 12, 2018 at 20:07

answered Nov 12, 2018 at 19:50

user6811411

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SysEngineer · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-12 19:34:45Z

0

The following will get you what you want. First I grabbed the contents of the txt file and put it in the $doc variable. Then using powershell's native "text" search feature I look for the string containing "Good Morning" and if that is true then using regex I grab all contents between the start and end text and create a new txt file with those contents. Below is the code.

$doc = Get-Content C:\Scripts\test.txt

      if(Select-String -InputObject $doc -Pattern "Good Morning" -SimpleMatch){
        $contents = [regex]::Match($doc,'(?is)(?<=\b\d: Start\b).*?(?=\b\d: End\b)')
            New-Item -Path C:\Scripts -Name newtest.txt -ItemType File -Value $contents
      }
      Else{
         Write-Host "Nothing Found"
      }

answered Nov 12, 2018 at 19:34

SysEngineer

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4 Comments

Saurabh Over a year ago

I tried below code. it generates output file but its blank. can we add like command instead of is start end? $doc = Get-Content "C:\Users\a154499\Desktop\testPS.txt" if(Select-String -InputObject $doc -Pattern "dwsn14626" -SimpleMatch){ $contents = [regex]::Match($doc,'(?is)(?<=\b\d: Schedule\b).*?(?=\b\d: End\b)') New-Item -Path C:\tmp1 -Name newtest.txt -ItemType File -Value $contents } Else{ Write-Host "Nothing Found" }

Saurabh Over a year ago

It is not working for me. i have many recursive entries in the file. will this script help to show multiple section in file?

Saurabh Over a year ago

It worked if i have only one occurrence but not working in my case because i have multiple occurrence of schedule and end statements. $doc = Get-Content "C:\testPS.txt" if(Select-String -InputObject $doc -Pattern "DWSN14624"){ $contents = [regex]::Match($doc,'(?sm)(?=SCHEDULE).*?DWSN14624.*?(?=END).*') New-Item -Path C:\tmp1 -Name newtest.txt -ItemType File -Value $contents } Else{ Write-Host "Nothing Found" }

user6811411 Over a year ago

Separating the trigger Good Morning from the Start,End markers could lead to false positives in a more complex scenario than originally given. @Saurabh Did I guess right the leadinng numbers colon are not part of the file? You should append a more real life example to your question.

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