Question

I have some files that I would like to rename using regex and powershell, but I am not sure of the patterns for the files.

Example of file names I need to rename and what they should end up looking like. ps placing the names in “” to account for spaces.

How the files are named now

“[abs] anima.some e147 name [480p].avi”
“anima.some e147 name #anim group .avi”
“anima.some e147 name [480p].avi”
“anima some e147 name [480p].avi”

How they should be name

“Anime some e147.avi”

Answer 1

How’s this:

# Create array of filenames
$files = 
"[abs] anima.some e147 name [480p].avi",
"anima.some e147 name #anim group .avi",
"anima.some e147 name [480p].avi",
"anima some e147 name [480p].avi"

# Setup patterns to match against
$pattern1 = "\[\w+\] ([^.]+).([\w]+) ([\S]+) [\w]+ \[[\w]+\].avi"
$pattern2 = "([^.\s]+).([\w]+) ([\S]+) .*.avi"

# Loop through file names and attempt matching
foreach($f in $files)
{
    if($f -match $pattern1)
    {
        $string = (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase($matches[1]) + " " + $matches[2] + " " + $matches[3] + ".avi"
        $string
    }
    elseif($f -match $pattern2)
    {
        $string = (Get-Culture).TextInfo.ToTitleCase($matches[1]) + " " + $matches[2] + " " + $matches[3] + ".avi"
        $string
    }
    else
    {
        "unmatched file: " + $f
    }
}

The output is:

Anima some e147.avi
Anima some e147.avi
Anima some e147.avi
Anima some e147.avi