Utility to monitor folder for a line in a text file

[rG-tom]

Hey,

I need a utility that monitors a folder that has text files outputted from a program into it.

I need it to look for a certain value in said text files, and if it exists, replace it with another.

Is this something that can be done easily or am I being a little optimistic?

Thanks,

tom.

 

[rG-tom]

Eulogy, that looks along the lines of what I want.

This is my first time using powershell for a script. How would I go around using this and setting a timer for example so that it runs once a minute or whatever? It's windows server 2008.

Thanks for your help guys

 

[rG-tom]

right, ok sorted it, needed a slight tweak to the code

$dir = "C:\tmp\*.txt"
$files = DIR $Dir

foreach ($file in $files)

{
	(Get-Content $file) |Foreach-Object {$_ -replace "lol", "moo"} |Set-Content $file
}

It needed the foreach-ojbect to work properly

I've saved this as a ps1 file and created a shortcut powershell.exe c:\test.ps1 and set this as a scheduled action to run once every 5 minutes. Is this the most efficient way?

Thanks again,

Tom.

 

[rG-tom]

You would probably just use task scheduler to run it at regular intervals.

As you appear to be using Windows with the interest in PowerShell, you could also code up a little utility in .NET that uses the FileSystemWatcher to monitor specific folder and notify automatically when things change rather than constantly polling.

It's a cleaner solution, but may be overkill for your needs!

the folder is only going to ever have say 5 or 6 text files in it at any point on a bad day, and each only about 20 lines long.

Is there a way of noting what changes it makes and the file name in which it makes the changes, and outputting it to a log file? So you can look back in say a month and see how many times it's actually actioned, and when and what filename?

thanks,

Tom.

 

[rG-tom]

Eulogy, that works except the next time it runs, it replaces the log.txt instead of appending to it. I've removed the Clear-Content $logfile and it seems ok now

One note, is it possible for it to show what was changed in the file and how many times? The script is going to have a few criteria ie "X to Y" | "A to B" and it'd be nice to know which ones it had changed.

for reference this is the code atm:

$dir = "C:\tmp\*"
$files = DIR $Dir
$logfile = "C:\tmp\log.txt"
$output = ""

Clear-Content $logfile


foreach ($file in $files)

{
$newline = @()
$count = 0

$filecontent = (Get-Content $file)

	foreach ($line in $filecontent)

	{
	
		if ($line -match "lol")
		{
		$count++
		}

		if ($line -match "rofl")
		{
		$count++
		}




	$newline = $newline + ($line -replace "lol", "cat" -replace "rofl", "coptor")
	$newline | Set-Content $file

	}

	if ($count -ne 0)
	{
	$date = Get-Date
	$output = "$file changed on $date"
	Write-Host $output 
	$output | Out-File $logfile -append
	}

}

One other note is that the log file has spaces between all the characters, ie :

C : \ t m p \ t e s t . t x t   c h a n g e d   o n   0 3 / 2 3 / 2 0 1 1   1 0 : 0 5 : 4 8

This is only a very minor thing though and if it's not a simple switch then don't worry