I am currently attempting to automate modifying start and end dates within a .config file via powershell but I am having issues identifying the regular expression for the end date section since both are on the same line in the file. Below is the string that I want to change.

• Sometimes the dates are blank and sometimes the dates are filled in.
• Dates are always in the same format (yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm).
• I also want to note that there are multiple instances of 'StartDate="" EndDate=""' for other applications throughout the same config file so I cannot limit the expression to not include the App name. 
• I do not want to limit the search to a line number since there are instances where admins will add an extra space in the config file that may throw off the line number.

I want to replace the dates or lack there of in their respective spots on the line below via powershell:

 <App name="TestApp" StartDate="2012-03-22 13:30" EndDate="">

I am successfully able to use 

$startRegex = '(?<=<App name="TestApp" StartDate=")([^"]*)'

to replace the StartDate but I can't seem to single out the EndDate with regular expression. What expression can I use to have it ignore what is in the quotations after StartDate and only pay attention to the EndDate value?

Below is a snippet: 

$path = d:\inetpub\website\app.config

$startRegex = '(?<=<App name="TestApp" StartDate=")([^"]*)'

$starttime = (get-date).ToString("yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm")

(gc $path) -replace $startregex, $starttime | set-content $path

I want to accomplish the same for EndDate.

Thanks in advance!

• Edited by Faye8 Thursday, April 23, 2015 2:00 PM Corrected Start Regex