I have a file with no header info just data values that is delimited by a veritcal bar. The file is saved as .csv.

pay.csv

 CAN|2000|inv3002|300.00

 |2000|inv3002|300.00

AFter

BEG|2000|inv3002|300.00

Sometimes when the file is created the first field is empty or Null. I want to find these and Insert a constant

value of 'BEG' and kept the remaining values in file.

 Thanks.

Something like this should work:

(Get-Content .\pay.csv) -replace '^\|', 'BEG|' | Set-Content .\pay.csv

• Proposed as answer by DScripter 15 hours 54 minutes ago

  Awesome!!!!  Can it report how many changes happended?

 Fixed=?
 NoChange=?

  Like doing a write-host or something to report back.

 THanks.

Sure, you could do something like that:

$unchanged = 0
$changed = 0

(Get-Content .\pay.csv) |
ForEach-Object {
    if ($_ -match '^\|')
    {
        $changed++
        'BEG' + $_
    }
    else
    {
        $unchanged++
        $_
    }
} |
Set-Content .\pay.csv

Write-Host "Lines changed: $changed, Lines unchanged: $unchanged."

• Proposed as answer by Mike Laughlin 13 hours 36 minutes ago
• Marked as answer by hart60 9 hours 9 minutes ago

 Thanks.