PowerShell Replace First Character in String

Using the PowerShell replace operator with regex expression to find the first character in PowerShell, you can replace the first character in a string. Anchor ^ asserts the position of the start of the string is used in the regex expression.

In this article, we will discuss how to replace the first character in a string using PowerShell replace operator or replace() method.

PowerShell Replace First Character in String

Use the PowerShell replace operator to replace the first character in a string. Use the anchor ^ for the start of the string as the first argument in the replace operator and the second argument is to replace it with a new string.

Refer to the following code for the replacement of the first character.

$str = "Admin! Let's learn PowerShell with Hello World program."  

$str -replace '^(.)','SysA'  

In the above PowerShell script, the $str variable stores the string data.

Use replace operator over the string variable $str to search for a first character using anchor ^ and regex expression (.) and second argument SysA to replace with found the first character.

The output of the replacement of the first character in a string using the PowerShell replace operator is:

Cool Tip: How to replace the first occurrence of a string in PowerShell!

Replace First Character in a String using PowerShell replace() method

Using the PowerShell string replace() method, you can find and replace the first character in a string. To get the first character in a string, use the substring method.

Convert the first character to [regex] type and use replace() method to replace the first character with the replacement string.

$test = "Admin! Let's learn PowerShell with Hello World program."

# Get the first character
$firsChar = $test.Substring(0,1)

# Convert the first character to regex type variable
[regex]$pattern = $firsChar

# use replace() method to replace the first character
$pattern.replace($test, "SysA") 

In the above PowerShell script, the $test variable stores the string data.

Using the PowerShell string substring() method, it gets the first character as A

Convert the character to regex type variable $pattern and use the replace() method to replace the first character with string SysA

The output of the above PowerShell script to replace the first character in a string is:

SysAdmin! Let's learn PowerShell with Hello World program.

Conclusion

I hope the above article on how to replace the first character using the PowerShell replace operator and replace() method is helpful to you.

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