Powershell Regex: Replace only multiple spaces with tabs

Question

This is a Powershell question similar to what was being asked in this C# question: C# Question Link

I have fixed width column data in a text file that are of variable length, so I'd like to delimit the data with tabs. To do so, I want to use Powershell to read in the file, replace only multiple spaces with tabs using a Regex expression, keep the end of lines intact and output it to a temp file. I'll then rename it to the original.

I've searched the web and only seem to be able to find bits and pieces. Any assistance with this would be greatly appreciated!

Joey · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-10 14:05:15Z

7

Fetch the contents

$content = [IO.File]::ReadAllText('foo.txt')

Replace at least two spaces by a single tab:

$content = $content -replace ' {2,}', "`t"

Write back to a file

[IO.File]::WriteAllText('footab.txt', $contents)

edited Jun 10, 2013 at 14:05

answered Jun 10, 2013 at 11:55

Joey

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8 Comments

Lawrence Knowlton Over a year ago

First, thank you! That was wicked fast! Also, what does the $utf8 statement add to this and is it necessary on a plain ole ASCII file? Thank you again!

Joey Over a year ago

It just specifies that the output should be written as UTF-8 without a BOM. You can omit it if it's just ASCII, I think. In fact, without the encoding parameter the method does exactly that, so it's unnecessary in either case.

Lawrence Knowlton Over a year ago

Awesome! Now I'm going to incorporate this into a VBA shell call, so I don't have to leave my Excel macro :) Doing this in VBA would be many more lines of code! Thanks again!

Lawrence Knowlton Over a year ago

I thought it was working, but the footab file is still empty. Any ideas?

Joey Over a year ago

Try a complete path to the input and output file.

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CB. · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-10 13:05:36Z

3

try

gc .\0.txt  | 
 % { $_ -replace '  +',"`t" } |   
     set-content .\temp.txt

edited Jun 10, 2013 at 13:05

answered Jun 10, 2013 at 11:53

CB.

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8 Comments

CB. Over a year ago

@AnsgarWiechers Edited with 2 ' ' space char ;)

Lawrence Knowlton Over a year ago

Are you saying that single spaces would be replaced? If so, that is not what I need. The data have single spaces in them, each column always has 2 or more spaces between them. Thank you!

CB. Over a year ago

@LawrenceKnowlton NO, single spaces aren't replaced.

Lawrence Knowlton Over a year ago

Cool! I'll try to decipher what you have there. I know you are using the alias for GetContent, but after that the syntax is ehm taxing lol! Thanks!

Ansgar Wiechers Over a year ago

@LawrenceKnowlton + in regular expressions means "the previous expression one or more times". In this case the previous "expression" is just a single space, and this expression is preceeded by another space. Thus the whole expression translates to "a space followed by one or more spaces" (or "2 or more spaces" for short).

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