Name folder based on file name using regex in powershell

Question

I am trying to name a folder based on a file name, using regex in powershell.

The name looks something like this tester2-2013-14-10.txt .

With that file name being said, I want to create a folder named tester2 . It will do this for all files in a directory. Basically the regex needs to read up until the first '-', then ignore all other characters after that. It

All regular expressions that I am trying have not worked to do such a things.

Here is the regex I am trying to use (\\w+)\\.txt .

And here it is when I try and implement it:

Get-ChildItem | Where{$_.Name -match '(\w+)\.txt'} | ForEach-Object{
  md $matches[1]}

Along with other variations of this type of thing.

It appears that when I run a file name against this regex, it is using the end of the string. Such as in the case of tester2-2013-14-10.txt . The folder name that is being created is called 10 instead of Tester2 .

Appreciate the help!

Answer 1

Try following regex

^(\w+)-.*\.txt

Refer to regex101 demo for validation and explanation.

Short Description

^ matches start of the line or string. It will ensure that match should be at the starting of a line.

Hence ^(\\w+) will match the first word in the file name. Then it has to be followed by - and any characters until .txt

What's wrong with your regex?

(\\w+)\\.txt will match a word (\\w+) immediately followed by .txt .

Hence you are getting last word instead of the first word.