replace names of all directiories and files in PS

Question

I want to replace all space characters into "_" in names of all subfolders and files. Unfortunately when I type:

Get-ChildItem -recurse -name | ForEach-Object { Rename-Item $_ $_.replace(" ","_") }

Error message:

Rename-Item : Source and destination path must be different. At line:1 char:60 + Get-ChildItem -recurse -name | ForEach-Object { Rename-Item <<<< $_ $.replace(" ","") } + CategoryInfo : WriteError: (PATH_HERE) [Rename-Item], IOException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : RenameItemIOError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RenameItemCommand

How I should improve this short code?

Shay Levy · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-15 12:32:05Z

16

Don't use the Name switch, it outputs only the names of the objects, not their full path. Try this:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse | ` Where-Object {$_.Name -match ' '} | ` Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace ' ','_' }

answered Dec 15, 2011 at 12:32

Shay Levy

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4 Comments

Michael Blackburn Over a year ago

Nice. Might want to include Where-Object {$_.Attributes -notmatch 'Directory' } as an additional filter. You can't rename a directory while you're iterating through it.

Michael J. Heier Over a year ago

@MichaelBlackburn another trick is to sort the collection by the FullName in descending order. This forces the script to handle all of the child items in a directory before modifying the directory itself.

Native Dev Over a year ago

Thank you! I've referred to your answer on a couple other related pages. You are the only one to get around the two most common issues.

Ivo Merchiers Over a year ago

@MichaelJ.Heier Can you maybe suggest an edit with the code for sorting by FullName?

Stefan · Accepted Answer · 2011-12-15 10:42:31Z

6

The issue here is that if there is no space in the file name the name does not change. This is not supported by Rename-Item. You should use Move-Item instead:

Get-ChildItem -recurse -name | ForEach-Object { Move-Item $_ $_.replace(" ", "_") }

Additionally, in your answer you missed the underscore in $_.replace(...) plus you where replacing spaces with an empty string. Included this in my answer.

answered Dec 15, 2011 at 10:42

Stefan

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3 Comments

matandked Over a year ago

Move-Item : The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. At line:1 char:58 + Get-ChildItem -recurse -name | ForEach-Object { Move-Item <<<< $_ $_.replace(" ", "_") } + CategoryInfo : WriteError:

Native Dev Over a year ago

@matandked See this answer Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.Name -match ' '} | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name -replace ' ','' } found on stackoverflow.com/a/8520172

Ran Lottem Over a year ago

This is the one that helped me understand that a filter is needed to make sure the name is changed, otherwise you get errors if trying to rename an object to the same name

Shiham Sham · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-03 02:29:26Z

Adding a filter worked for me:

Get-ChildItem C:\path-to-directory -Recurse -Filter *foo* | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.name -replace 'foo', 'bar'} -verbose

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