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PowerShell search text file contents


PowerShell code below will search recursively all text file on the path specified. If the pattern matches on the text file, the contents will be copied and all matching patterns will be consolidated on a single file.

#=============================

Get-ChildItem -Path "d:\all_text_files \" -recurse | ForEach-Object {

  @'

= = =>>>The file name - {0}

{1}

- - - - - - -

`r`n

'@ -f $_.Name, (Get-Content $_.FullName )

}  | Select-String -pattern "router" | Out-File 'd:\d_output\output.txt'

#=============================

Code explanation:

Get-ChildItem -Path "d:\txt notes\" -recurse | ForEach-Object  >>> Get all the items recursively on the path specified and for each object process each object

  @'  '@ >>> PowerShell string format that any text or string between the @ symbol will be process exactly as it is displayed, it’s like what you see is what you get.

{0} {1} >>> are place holders, in which the value we be replaced as each object is processed by the for each loop

-f >>> is a format operator which utilizes the {0} and {1} place holders

 $_.Name, (Get-Content $_.FullName ) >>> $_.Name will take place {0} and Get-Content $_.Fullname takes the place holder {1}

| Select-String -pattern "router"  >>> the pattern or the string that will be search  on each file

| Out-File 'd:\d_output\output.txt' >>> any matching pattern will be kept on this text file


If you need to list only the filenames and don't need to copy the contents the code above can be tweak to this edited code below:


#=============================

Get-ChildItem -Path "d:\all_text_files \" -recurse | ForEach-Object {

  @'

= = =>>>The file name - {0}

`r`n
- - - - - - -


'@ -f $_.Name

}  | Select-String -pattern "router" | Out-File 'd:\d_output\filename_output.txt'

#=============================

The format  (-f) operator needs {0} only since only the filename will be processed.

The code can also be used to search for eml files, since eml files are text files also. I think it might work also on  xml files but I haven't test.



Happy scripting.

Cheers..till next time.



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