In powershell, how can I use Rename-Item to output the old and new file names at the same time?

Question

I'd like to select a list of files using Get-ChildItem piped to Rename-Item and have the output display text with each line showing something like "Renamed oldfilename to newfilename".

How can I do this?

Answer 1

Get-Childitem C:\Temp |
    Foreach-object {
        $OldName = $_.name; 
        $NewName = $_.name -replace 'temp','test'; 
        Rename-Item -Newname $NewName; 
        Write-Output $("Renamed {0} to {1}" -f $OldName,$NewName)
        }

Answer 2

One simple solution is to run rename-item with -WhatIf. This will display something like

PS H:\test> gci | rename-item -newname { $_.name -replace 'temp','test' } -WhatIf
What if: Performing operation "Rename File" on Target "Item: H:\test\temp1 Destination: H:\test\test1".

Good enough, or do you need it to do it while also doing the operation?

EDIT: An even simpler solution, use -Verbose. Does the same as the -WhatIf, but also performing the operation :)

Answer 3

You can do it like this:

gci . | %{ rename-item -Path $_.fullname -NewName ($_.name + 1); Write-Host "Renamed $($_.fullname) to $($_.name + 1)"}

Answer 4

I know this is a bit old but I do have a problem with all of them. This will loop thru all the files and rename them even if the name doesn't change! That's unneeded over-head.

I've add a few more options.

    Get-ChildItem -Filter *.txt -Recurse -Path "C:\temp" | 
    Foreach-object {
        
        $OldName = $_.name; 
        $NewName = $_.name -replace 'temp','test'; 
        
        If ( $OldName -ne $NewName ){
            Rename-Item -Path $_.PSPath -Newname $NewName; 
            Write-Output $("Renamed {0} to {1}" -f $OldName,$NewName);
            }
        }