Removing strings from file names with PowerShell

What happened was we have a few hundred files that is numbered with "1_, 2_, 3_" and so on. We were requested to remove the numberings and I don't wanna rename them one by one!

At first, my first google search worked, which was to remove the first two strings from the file name in a folder:

1. Go to the folder with the files for renaming
2. Right-click + Shift anywhere in the folder and select Open PowerShell window here option
3. Paste the following script

#Remove the first two strings from files
get-childitem *.pdf | rename-item -newname { [string]($_.name).substring(2) }

Yep it worked in removing the first two strings until it gets to a double digit number and the "_" wasn't removed. Well I could arrange the folder according to their numberings as such -> 1-9, 10-99, 100-999 and so on.. but I supposed there's a better way.

I asked ChatGPT and here's what she served:

# Get all files in the current directory
$files = Get-ChildItem

# Loop through each file
foreach ($file in $files) {
    # Check if the file name matches the pattern "number_"
    if ($file.Name -match '^(\d+)_') {
        # Extract the part after the numbering
        $newName = $file.Name -replace '^(\d+)_', ''
        
        # Rename the file
        Rename-Item -Path $file.FullName -NewName $newName
    }
}

This script will only remove the numbering, regardless of the number of digit. I tried it with two methods and it worked. The first one is the same as above, that is to paste the script above in the PowerShell Window.

The second method:

1. Save the script in any text editor and save it as file .ps1 file. In this example, I it is 'C:\Scripts\remove_numbering.ps1'
2. Right-click + Shift anywhere in the folder and select Open PowerShell window here option
3. Paste 'C:\Scripts\remove_numbering.ps1' and press Enter.

Note: This code works only if the file names, after removing the numbering, are unique.

Thoughts -

So... this is my first encounter with PowerShell and it seems like there is for sure a crazy lots of things for me to learn and utilise.

ChatGPT - I'm all for using it to to learn simple programming.