Adding delimiter every n places in every line

Question

How can I extend this script to add delimiters in every line.

apple123456NewYorkCity
nissan98766BostonMA
...
...

$x = somefile.txt
$y = @( ($x[0..4] -join ''), ($x[5..10] -join ''), 
($x[11..17] -join ''),
($x[18..21] -join ''))

$z = $y -join '|' 
$z > somenewfile.txt

Is the foreach code like this?

$x| %{@( ($_[0..4] -join ''), ($_[5..10] -join ''), 
($_[11..17] -join ''),
($_[18..21] -join ''))}??

Answer 1

I'ld use REGEX for this kind of job, to avoid problems with different parts lenghts:

Get-Content .\somefile.txt | % { $_ -replace '(\D*[^\d]*)(\d*[^\D]*)(.+)','$1 $2 $3' }

Answer 2

And suddenly it is clear what you want.

Long form:

$lines = Get-Content "somefile.txt"
ForEach ($x in $lines) {
    $y = "$($x[0..4] -join '')|$($x[5..10] -join '')|$($x[11..17] -join '')|$($x[18..21] -join '')"
    $z = $y -join '|'
    Write-Output $z | Out-File -FilePath "somenewfile.txt" -Append
}

Short form:

gc somefile.txt | % { "$($_[0..4] -join '')|$($_[5..10] -join '')|$($_[11..17] -join '')|$($_[18..21] -join '')" } >> somenewfile.txt

I got rid of the building an array and joining it, and replaced it with string expansion where the string has the delimiters in it; for viewers, the pattern is:

"$()|$()|$()"  #expressions in a string, separated by bars

"$($_[0..4] -join '')|.."  #each expression is taking characters 
                           #and joining the resulting array into a string
                           #$_.SubString(n,m) would return a string directly
                           #but it complains if you go past the end of the
                           #string, whereas $_[n..m] does not

Answer 3

another solution with regex:

(cat file) -replace '\d+|\D+','$0 '

apple 123456 NewYorkCity
nissan 98766 BostonMA