Question

I am trying to use PowerShell do a simple find and replace. I use template text files and use $ in front of values that need to be changed.

Example:

(Get-Content "D:\test") | Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "`$TBQUAL", "DBO"} | Set-Content "D:\test"

It should find the line OWNER=$TBQUAL and make it look like OWNER=DBO.

I am using the escape in front of $TBQUAL with no luck. To test that it is working if I removed the $ from the front, it would replace TBQUAL and made it look like OWNER=$DBO.

Answer 1

Two things to get this to work:

1. Use single quotes for your strings so that the $ is not interpreted as the start of a variable to be expanded.
2. Escape the $ using a backslash “\” so the regular expression parser takes it literally.

For example,

PS C:\> 'Has a $sign in it' -replace 'a \$sign', 'no dollar sign'
Has no dollar sign in it