Replace server name in UNC path using PowerShell

Question

I'm working with the XML configuration file which contains the UNC path:

[xml]$config = Get-Content $file
$UNC = ($config.configuration.unc.value)

Where $UNC then equals \\dev.local\share\shared

I need to replace the server name dev.local (whose name is unknown) in the $UNC variable with prod.local using Powershell.

What is the best approach to achieve this?

Answer 1

You can use -replace with a regular expression:

PS C:\Users\robin> $unc = '\\dev.local\share\shared'
PS C:\Users\robin> $server = 'prod.local'
PS C:\Users\robin> $newUnc = $unc -replace '(\\\\)([a-z\.]+)(\\*)', "`$1$server`$3"
PS C:\Users\robin> $unc
\\dev.local\share\shared
PS C:\Users\robin> $newUnc
\\prod.local\share\shared

The regular expression is matching 3 groups:

1. the initial \\
2. anything between 1. upto the next \
3. the first \ and anything after

Group 2 is replace with the value of the variable $server set to prod.local in this example.

The replace syntax uses double quotes so $server is evaluated, and the backticks around the capture groups make them work as substitutions from the regular expression.