Replace substring in PowerShell

Question

I have a string in the form -content-, and I would like to replace it with &content&. How can I do this with replace in PowerShell?

Answer 1

The built-in -replace operator allows you to use a regex for this e.g.:

C:\PS> '-content-' -replace '-([^-]+)-', '&$1&'
&content&

Note the use of single quotes is essential on the replacement string so PowerShell doesn't interpret the $1 capture group.

Answer 2

PowerShell strings are just .NET strings, so you can:

PS> $x = '-foo-'
PS> $x.Replace('-', '&')
&foo&

...or:

PS> $x = '-foo-'
PS> $x.Replace('-foo-', '&bar&')
&bar&

Obviously, if you want to keep the result, assign it to another variable:

PS> $y = $x.Replace($search, $replace)