How to move part of a file name to a different position

Question

I have a set of files in a folder. I would like to edit all file names by moving part of the file name to a different position. That is a sample of what I have:

Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_ND_4_Dist_0_Pot_Drop_out.txt        
Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_ND_4_Dist_1_Pot_Drop_out.txt        
Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_ND_6_Dist_2_Pot_Drop_out.txt        
Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_ND_8_Dist_3_Pot_Drop_out.txt

that is what I want:

Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_Dist_0_ND_4_Pot_Drop_out.txt        
Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_Dist_1_ND_4_Pot_Drop_out.txt        
Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_Dist_2_ND_6_Pot_Drop_out.txt        
Par1_MD_0_5_AL_2_Dist_3_ND_8_Pot_Drop_out.txt

Basically, I want to place "ND_(number)" after "Dist_(number)

Thank you for your help.

Use regular expressions like @Mandy8055's suggestion like `$var -replace '(.*?)(ND_\d_)(Dist_\d_)(.*)', '$1$3$2$4'` — Nico Nekoru, Jul 04 '20 at 06:15
Please do let me know if the answer helped you...or you need something else in regards to this post... — , Jul 04 '20 at 20:16

score 5 · Answer 1 · 2020-07-05T04:29:49.453

You may try:

(.*?)(ND_\d_)(Dist_\d_)(.*)

Explanation of the above regex:

(.*?) - Represents first capturing group lazily matching everything before ND.
(ND_\d_) - Represents second cpaturing group matching ND_ followed by a digit. You can alter if digits are more than one like \d+.
(Dist_\d_) - Represents third capturing group matching Dist_ literally followed by a digit.
(.*) - Represents fourth capturing group matching everything after greedily.
$1$3$2$4 - For the replacement part swap groups $3 and $2 to get your required result.

You can find the demo of the above regex in here.

Powershell Command for renaming the files:

PS C:\Path\To\MyDesktop\Where\Files\Are\Present> Get-ChildItem -Path . -Filter *.txt | Foreach-Object {
>>   $_ | Rename-Item -NewName ( $_.Name -Replace '(.*?)(ND_\d_)(Dist_\d_)(.*)', '$1$3$2$4' )
>> }

Explanation of the above command:

1. Get-ChildItem - The Get-ChildItem cmdlet gets the items in one or more specified locations
2. -Path . - Represents a flag option for checking in present working directory.
3. -Filter *.txt - Represents another flag option which filters all the .txt files in present working directory.
4. Foreach-Object - Iterate over objects which we got from the above command.
    4.1. Rename-Item -NewName - Rename each item 
         4.2. $_.Name -Replace - Replace the name of each item containing regex pattern with the replacement pattern.
5. end of loop

How to move part of a file name to a different position

1 Answers1