rename-item and override if filename exists

Question

I am trying to use the Rename-Item cmdlet to do the following:

I have folder which contains "*.txt" files. Let's say 1.txt, 2.txt etc...

I want to copy files that have some prefix, rename them to *.txt and override any existing files if there are any.

example:

folder: c:\TEST

files : 1.txt, 2.txt, 3.txt, 4.txt, 5.txt, index.1.txt, index.2.txt, index.3.txt, index.4.txt, index.5.txt

I want to use rename-item to filter any index.*.txt and rename them to *.txt, and if the same file exists, replace it.

Thank you guys

Answer 1

As noted by @lytledw, Move-Item -Force works great for renaming and overwriting files.

To replace the index. part of the name, you can use the -replace regex operator:

Get-ChildItem index.*.txt |ForEach-Object {
    $NewName = $_.Name -replace "^(index\.)(.*)",'$2'
    $Destination = Join-Path -Path $_.Directory.FullName -ChildPath $NewName
    Move-Item -Path $_.FullName -Destination $Destination -Force
}