find and replace in a file using powershell

Question

I would like to change the following in a 'Local State' chrome config file

from

"browser":{

Change to

"browser":{"enabled_labs_experiments":["read-later@2"],"

using this to replace standard Strings is great... but as you can see.. my needs are a little more complex

im having problems using this following command
powershell -Command "(gc myFile.txt) -replace 'foo', 'bar' | Out-File -encoding ASCII myFile.txt

the issue is that it appears that powershell knows only RAW... so the " and @ and : sends it into a spin...

is there a way to tell powershell to ingore those?.... or is there another way I can find & replace using powershell?

(F.A.R.T has the same issue)

Answer 1

This should work. Double check the quotes and brackets to make sure that I got it right.

$ThisFile = 'c:\temp\Local State'  
$data = Get-Content $ThisFile   
if ($data.Contains('read-later@2')) {  
    "Looks like this file was already updated."  
    "Exiting."  
    exit  
}  
  
if ($data.Contains('enabled_labs_experiments') -eq $false) {  
    "I didn't find enabled_labs_experiments anywhere."  
    "I will insert after browser."  
    $data = $data.Replace('browser":{','browser":{"enabled_labs_experiments":["read-later@2"],')     
    $data | Out-File -encoding ASCII $ThisFile  
    "I updated $ThisFile"  
    exit  
}  
  
if ($data.Contains('enabled_labs_experiments":[]') -eq $false) {  
    "Looks like this file has something different specified for enabled_labs_experiments."  
    "I don't know what to do so I'm exiting."  
    exit  
}  
  
  
$data = $data.Replace('enabled_labs_experiments":[]','enabled_labs_experiments":["read-later@2"]')     
$data | Out-File -encoding ASCII $ThisFile  
"I updated $ThisFile"  
 

Answer 2

just to confirm... I cant add this to the end of the 'local state' file it needs to be where it finds it... and then replaces it... or Chrome will consider it a courpt 'local state' file

Answer 3

Looks like you will need to account for this string...

"enabled_labs_experiments":[]  

I copied the file to C:\temp so that I could test. Save this as a .ps1 file to execute.

$ThisFile = 'c:\temp\Local State'  
$data = Get-Content $ThisFile   
if ($data.Contains('read-later@2')) {  
    "Looks like this file was already updated."  
    "Exiting."  
    exit  
}  
if ($data.Contains('enabled_labs_experiments":[]') -eq $false) {  
    "Looks like this file has something different specified for enabled_labs_experiments."  
    "I don't know what to do so I'm exiting."  
    exit  
}  
  
$data = $data.Replace('enabled_labs_experiments":[]','enabled_labs_experiments":["read-later@2"]')     
$data | Out-File -encoding ASCII $ThisFile  
"I updated $ThisFile"  

Answer 4

can this be compressed into 1 line ? to run from CMD ?