Remove everything before \

Question

I need to copy a lot of files and use the same sort of folder structure where the files needs to go. So for instance if I have the following two documents:

\\Server1\Projects\OldProject\English\Text_EN.docx
\\Server1\Projects\OldProject\English\Danish\Text_DA.docx

I would need to move them to a new place on the server, but they need to be in the same "language folder". So I need to move them like this:

\\Server1\Projects\OldProject\English\Text_EN.docx -> \\Server1\Projects\NewProject\English\Text_EN.docx
\\Server1\Projects\OldProject\English\Danish\Text_DA.docx -> \\Server1\Projects\NewProject\English\Danish\Text_DA.docx

The issue here is, that I would need to take names of the "language" folder and create them in the NewProject folder.

How would I be able to take and remove everything before the \, so I end up with only having the "language" folders like English\ and English\Danish

Assuming your current directory is ``\\Server1\Projects\OldProject\``, doesn't `Copy-Item .\* -Destination \\Server1\Projects\NewProject\ -Recurse` work? — Santiago Squarzon, Nov 07 '22 at 14:07
Use [`-Container` on Copy-Item](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.management/copy-item?view=powershell-7.2#example-2-copy-directory-contents-to-an-existing-directory). StackOverflow [answer](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5432290/how-to-use-powershell-copy-item-and-keep-structure) — Ash, Nov 07 '22 at 14:08
The problem is that I need to create the folders with `New-Item` and in order to that, I'd need to know the names of the folder I need to create. I have 5 "main language" folders, where the main language file goes in and within that "main language" folder, I need to have "secondary language" folder. So let's say, someone has a file called `Test_EN` as the main, it would need to go to the `\English\Test_EN` and if he has a secondary one called `Test_DA` then it needs to go into `\English\Danish\Test_DA` — wads, Nov 07 '22 at 14:46

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 07 '22 at 14:38

If the goal it to just replace the 'OldProject' folder with 'NewProject' in the file path you could use replace to make the change to the file path:

$filePath = Get-ChildItem \\Server1\Projects\OldProject\English\Text_EN.docx
Copy-Item $filePath.FullName -Destination ($filepath.FullName -replace "\bOldProject\b", "NewProject")

The '\b' is used to do a regex EXACT match for anything inside the tags.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 07 '22 at 15:15

Try the following, which, for each input file:

constructs the target dir. path by replacing the old project dir.'s root path with the new one's, thereby effectively replicating the old dir.'s subdirectory structure.
makes sure that the target dir. exists
then copies the input file to the target dir.

$oldProjectRoot = '\\Server1\Projects\OldProject'
$newProjectRoot = '\\Server1\Projects\NewProject'

Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.docx -LiteralPath $oldProjectRoot |
  ForEach-Object {
    # Construct the target dir. path, with the same relative path 
    # as the input dir. path relative to the old project root.
    $targetDir = 
      $newProjectRoot + $_.Directory.FullName.Substring($oldProjectRoot.Length)
    # Create the target dir., if necessary (-Force returns any preexisting dir.)
    $null = New-Item -Force -Type Directory $targetDir
    $_ # Pass the input file through.
  } |
  Copy-Item -Destination { $targetDir } -WhatIf

^{Note: The -WhatIf common parameter in the command above previews the operation. Remove -WhatIf once you're sure the operation will do what you want.}

Remove everything before \

2 Answers2