Remove first 2 lines from multiple files in a directory

PowerShell Help
1

Hello,

Today is my first day playing around with powershell (used to do some scripting in bash/linux and batch scripting way long ago)

I found some scripts that are similar to what I need and am trying to mash them together. I would like to move the first two lines from a number of files that are in a directory but can’t get this to work. Any help would be very appreciated. Thanks!

 

[pre] Get-Content c:\test*.txt | ForEach { Get-Content $.Fullname | Select-Object -Skip 2 | Out-File "$($.Directory)$($_.BaseName)-new.txt"}[/pre]

2

If you want to overwrite existing files you could start with something like this:

Get-Content c:\test\*.txt | 
    ForEach-Object {
        $Content = Get-Content -Path $_.Fullname
        $Content | 
        Select-Object -Skip 2 | 
        Out-File -FilePath $_.Fullname
    }

Please test with test files! :wink:

3

Thanks for the quick response. I’m getting the following error

 

 

[pre] Out-File : Cannot bind argument to parameter ‘FilePath’ because it is null.
At C:\test\test4.ps1:6 char:28

  • Out-File -FilePath $_.Fullname
  • CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:slight_smile: [Out-File], ParameterBindingValidationException
  • FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationErrorNullNotAllowed,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.OutFileCommand

Get-Content : Cannot bind argument to parameter ‘Path’ because it is null.
At C:\test\test4.ps1:3 char:38 [/pre]

4

<p style=“text-align: center;”></p>
Try this:

Get-Content c:\test*.txt |
ForEach {
Get-Content -Path $_ | Select-Object -Skip 2 | Set-Content $_
}

here $_.FullName will not work. Because returned object is System.String not System.Io.FileInfo

5

That also did not work, unfortunately. It seems to be spitting out the first line of the file and trying to read it for processing.

[pre] Get-Content : Cannot find drive. A drive with the name 'Job ‘Run_GetDataMonthlyUploadCnts’ ’ does not exist.
At C:\test\test4.ps1:3 char:1

  • Get-Content -Path $_ | Select-Object -Skip 2 | Set-Content $_
  • CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Job ‘Run_GetDataMonthlyUploadCnts’ :String) [Get-Content], DriveNotFoundException
  • FullyQualifiedErrorId : DriveNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand [/pre]
6

oooops, sorry. My mistake … this should work:

Get-Content c:\test\*.txt | 
    ForEach-Object {
        $FullName = $_.Fullname
        $Content = Get-Content -Path $_.Fullname
        $Content | 
        Select-Object -Skip 2 | 
        Out-File -FilePath $FullName 
    }
7

Still getting an error. I appreciate you helping to troubleshoot.

 

[pre] Get-Content : Cannot bind argument to parameter ‘Path’ because it is null.
At C:\test\test4.ps1:4 char:38

  • $Content = Get-Content -Path $_.Fullname
  • CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:slight_smile: [Get-Content], ParameterBindingValidationException
  • FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationErrorNullNotAllowed,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand [/pre]
8 
# Skip first two lines then output all other lines
Get-ChildItem -Path c:\test -Filter *.txt | ForEach-Object {
    $line = Get-Content -Path $_.FullName
    $line[2..$line.Length] | Out-File "$($_.Directory)\$($_.BaseName)-new.txt"
}
9

That works, thanks!

 

-og