In Powershell 5 what is the best way to parse forward slash and backslash from a string

Question

I am accepting arguments to a script file for ServerName and Share. I want to make sure that the user does not add any leading or trailing forward slashes or backslashes.

Currently, I am doing this...

function validateServerShare($a_server, $a_share)
{

    $a_server = $a_server -replace'\\',''
    $a_server = $a_server -replace'/',''
    $a_share = $a_share -replace'\\',''
    $a_share = $a_share -replace'/',''

    $Path = "\\$a_server\$a_share"

    if(-not (Test-Path $Path)) 
    {
        haltError
    }
    return $Path
}

But I do not like the way I have to have multiple -replace lines. Is there a cleaner way or simpler way to strip forward and back slashes from a string, if they exist?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

In the post you say "leading or trailing" slashes, but in the code you remove any slashes regardless of position - which one is it? — Mathias R. Jessen, Jul 27 '17 at 16:57
`.Trim('\/')` will remove forward and back slashes from both ends of the string, and not the middle. — TessellatingHeckler, Jul 27 '17 at 17:20

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 27 '17 at 16:55

2

You can either chain your -replace calls:

$a_server = $a_server -replace '\\','' -replace '/',''

Or use a character class to match any of both:

$a_server = $a_server -replace '[\\/]',''

answered Jul 27 '17 at 16:55

Mathias R. Jessen

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MK_007 · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-27T22:18:53.880

1

In the past, enter a regex to hold the criteria to be replaced in a variable and then replace each occurrence of that criteria:

$a_server = "\\\sql2016\"
$a_share = "\temp\"

$criteria = "(/|\\*)" --criteria you want to replace


    $a_server = ($a_server -replace $criteria,'')
    $a_share = ($a_share -replace $criteria,'')


    $Path = "\\$a_server\$a_share"
    ## $path is now \\sql2016\temp

edited Jul 27 '17 at 22:18

answered Jul 27 '17 at 22:11

MK_007

26
4

I ended up using this solution but I gave a +1 to @Mathias R Jessen for another good solution – EiEiGuy Jul 28 '17 at 02:22

In Powershell 5 what is the best way to parse forward slash and backslash from a string

2 Answers2