2

I have a text file that contains something like the following:

blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string1, string2, string3,
        string4, string5, string6,}

blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string7, string8, string9,
        string10, string11, string12,}

and I would like to merge only the lines between the braces into one line to look like this:

blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string1, string2, string3, string4, string5, string6,}

blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string7, string8, string9, string10, string11, string12,}

However, I don't want to apply the change to the entire text file because it contains other things. I would like to edit only the text between braces { ... }. I messed around with -join but couldn't get it to work. I have the following script which opens the file, makes changes, and output into another file:

gc input.txt | 

# Here I have several editing commands, like find/replace.
# It would be great if I could add the new change here.

sc output.txt

Thank you!

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

Try this:

$text = (Get-Content .\input.txt) -join "`r`n"
($text | Select-String '(?s)(?<=Text : \{)(.+?)(?=\})' -AllMatches).Matches | % {
        $text = $text.Replace($_.Value, ($_.Value -split "`r`n" | % { $_.Trim() }) -join " ")
}
$text | Set-Content output.txt

It trims away the extra spaces at the start and end of each line, and connects all lines with a space.

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3 Comments

This is applied to the entire text file. I would like to only apply it to the text between the braces as I said, if possible.
see updated answer. this is almost identical to your other question which is answered now also.
This is a different approach so I figured it's worth asking a new question. Your solution works for the first set of 'Text : {'. But then it also changes (trims and joins) everything after it. So it is not restricted to only the text between braces throughout the file. I edited the question for a better representation of what is inside the file. I really appreciate your help Graimer.
1

Jumbo shrimp in a can:

$testdata = @'
blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string1, string2, string3,
        string4, string5, string6,}

blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string7, string8, string9,
        string10, string11, string12,}
'@

$testfile = 'c:\testfiles\testfile.txt'
$testdata | sc $testfile
$text = [IO.File]::ReadAllText($testfile)

$regex = @'
(?ms)(Text\s*:\s\{[^}]+)\s*
\s*([^}]+)\s*
'@

$text -replace $regex,'$1 $2'

blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string1, string2, string3, string4, string5, string6,}

blah, blah, blah ...

Text : {string7, string8, string9, string10, string11, string12,}

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4 Comments

Nice solution, but this only support 2 lines. It should be dynamic.
Unless I've misread the question, that's the objective. It will match and replace those 2 lines anywhere in the text. I'll update the answer to be more demonstrative.
His file is actually this: stackoverflow.com/questions/14840632/… which has 3 lines. It's a log file or something, so I guess the "Text" part can be 1 line, 10 lines, changing from time to time
It'll match whatever is in that here-string (that's the "can"), and the jumbo shrimp option (?ms) means you can write it to match to multiple lines. A .+ will match through multiple lines. Putting the regex segments on separate lines in the here-string is implicitly adding ^ and $ anchors to that part of the regex.

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