My goal is to display items in the directory C:\test in a log file called log.txt without displaying the file-extensions of the files found, e.g. .zip, .pdf, etc.
My script so far:
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Test\ -name |Out-File C:\test2\log.txt
How do I get the .log file to NOT display the extensions of the files found in the C:\test folder?
Use BaseName property instead of Name:
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Test\ | Select-Object -ExpandProperty BaseName | Out-File C:\test2\log.txt
As there's no built-in -BaseName property for Get-ChildItem cmdlet, you need to get that property using Select-Object. Expanding the property allows you to get only the value of chosen property, without the header.
Another way to get BaseName value would be to use .BaseName like this:
(Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Test\).BaseName | Out-File C:\test2\log.txt
That form is shorter, but personally I prefer the first one due to readability and no need to remember about surrounding braces ().
Best practice
If you want to inspect what are the possible properties (and their values) of the object you have, you can also use Select-Object for that:
# Warning: HUGE OUTPUT POSSIBLE
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\test\| Select-Object *
# It's usually good to take only one object from the array
$obj = (Get-ChildItem -Path C:\test\)[0]
$obj | Select-Object *
Related
I'm trying to create a list of file name criteria (MS Hotfixes) then find each file name containing that criteria in a directory and copy it to another directory. I think I'm close here but missing something simple.
Here is my current attempt:
#Create a list of the current Hotfixes.
Get-HotFix | Select-Object HotFixID | Out-File "C:\Scripts\CurrentHotfixList.txt"
#
#Read the list into an Array (dropping the first 3 lines).
$HotfixList = Get-Content "C:\Scripts\CurrentHotfixList.txt" | Select-Object -Skip 3
#
#Use the Hotfix names and copy the individual hotfixes to a folder
ForEach ($Hotfix in $HotfixList) {
Copy-Item -Path "C:\KBtest\*" -Include *$hotfix* -Destination "C:\KBtarget"
}
If I do a Write-Host $Hotfix and comment out my Copy-Item line I get the list of hotfixes as expected.
If I run just the copy command and input the file name I am looking for - it works.
Copy-Item -Path "C:\KBtest\*" -Include *kb5016693* -Destination "C:\KBtarget"
But when I run my script it copies all the files in the folder and not just the one file I am looking for. I have several hotfixes in that KBtest folder but only one that is correct for testing.
What am I messing up here?
The simplest solution to your problem, taking advantage of the fact that -Include can accept an array of patterns:
# Construct an array of include patterns by enclosing each hotfix ID
# in *...*
$includePatterns = (Get-HotFix).HotfixID.ForEach({ "*$_*" })
# Pass all patterns to a single Copy-Item call.
Copy-Item -Path C:\KBtest\* -Include $includePatterns -Destination C:\KBtarget
As for what you tried:
To save just the hotfix IDs to a plain-text file, each on its own line, use the following, don't use Select-Object -Property HotfixId (-Property is implied if you omit it), use Select-Object -ExpandProperty HotfixId:
Get-HotFix | Select-Object -ExpandProperty HotFixID | Out-File "C:\Scripts\CurrentHotfixList.txt"
Or, more simply, using member-access enumeration:
(Get-HotFix).HotFixID > C:\Scripts\CurrentHotfixList.txt
Using Select-Object -ExpandProperty HotfixID or (...).HotfixID returns only the values of the .HotfixID properties, whereas Select-Object -Property HotfixId - despite only asking for one property - returns an object that has a .HotfixID property - this is a common pitfall; see this answer for more information.
Then you can use a Get-Content call alone to read the IDs (as strings) back into an array (no need for Select-Object -Skip 3):
$HotfixList = Get-Content "C:\Scripts\CurrentHotfixList.txt"
(Note that, as the solution at the top demonstrates, for use in the same script you don't need to save the IDs to a file in order to capture them.)
This will likely fix your primary problem, which stems from how Out-File creates for-display string representations of the objects ([pscustomobject] instances) that Select-Object -Property HotfixID created:
Not only is there an empty line followed by a table header at the start of the output (which your Select-Object -Skip 3 call skips), there are also two empty lines at the end.
When these empty lines were read into $hotfix in your foreach loop, -Include *$hotfix* effectively became -Include **, which therefore copied all files.
first, you do not need to create and import those textfiles:
get-hotfix | ?{$_.hotfixid -notmatch 'KB5016594|KB5004567|KB5012170'} | %{
copy-item -path "C:\kbtest\$($_.HotfixId).exe" -Destination "C:\kbTarget"
}
This filters for the hotfixes you do not want, if you do not need it remove:
?{$_.hotfixid -notmatch 'KB5016594|KB5004567|KB5012170'}
I assume that those files are exe files in my example.
i am quite new to powershell and i am trying to make a script that copy files to certain folders that are declared in a CSV file. But till now i am getting errors from everywhere and can't find nothing to resolve this issue.
I have this folders and .txt files created in the same folder as the script.
Till now i could only do this:
$files = Import-Csv .\files.csv
$files
foreach ($file in $files) {
$name = $file.name
$final = $file.destination
Copy-Item $name -Destination $final
}
This is my CSV
name;destination
file1.txt;folderX
file2.txt;folderY
file3.txt;folderZ
As the comments indicate, if you are not using default system delimiters, you should make sure to specify them.
I also recommend typically to use quotes for your csv to ensure no problems with accidentally including an entry that includes the delimiter in the name.
#"
"taco1.txt";"C:\temp\taco2;.txt"
"# | ConvertFrom-CSV -Delimiter ';' -Header #('file','destination')
will output
file destination
---- -----------
taco1.txt C:\temp\taco2;.txt
The quotes make sure the values are correctly interpreted. And yes... you can name a file foobar;test..txt. Never underestimate what users might do. 😁
If you take the command Get-ChildItem | Select-Object BaseName,Directory | ConvertTo-CSV -NoTypeInformation and review the output, you should see it quoted like this.
Sourcing Your File List
One last tip. Most of the time I've come across a CSV for file input lists a CSV hasn't been needed. Consider looking at grabbing the files you in your script itself.
For example, if you have a folder and need to filter the list down, you can do this on the fly very easily in PowerShell by using Get-ChildItem.
For example:
$Directory = 'C:\temp'
$Destination = $ENV:TEMP
Get-ChildItem -Path $Directory -Filter *.txt -Recurse | Copy-Item -Destination $Destination
If you need to have more granular matching control, consider using the Where-Object cmdlet and doing something like this:
Get-ChildItem -Path $Directory -Filter *.txt -Recurse | Where-Object Name -match '(taco)|(burrito)' | Copy-Item -Destination $Destination
Often you'll find that you can easily use this type of filtering to keep CSV and input files out of the solution.
example
Using techniques like this, you might be able to get files from 2 directories, filter the match, and copy all in a short statement like this:
Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:\temp' -Filter '*.xlsx' -Recurse | Where-Object Name -match 'taco' | Copy-Item -Destination $ENV:TEMP -Verbose
Hope that gives you some other ideas! Welcome to Stack Overflow. 👋
I am using the below to recursively list all files in a folder that contains the $pattern
Get-ChildItem $targetDir -recurse | Select-String -pattern "$pattern" | group path | select name
But it seems it both list files having the $pattern in its name and in its content, e.g. when I run the above where $pattern="SAMPLE" I get:
C:\tmp\config.include
C:\tmp\README.md
C:\tmp\specs\SAMPLE.data.nuspec
C:\tmp\specs\SAMPLE.Connection.nuspec
Now:
C:\tmp\config.include
C:\tmp\README.md
indeed contains the SAMPLE keywords/text but I don't care about that, I only need the command to list file names not file with content matching the pattern. What am I missing?
Based on the below answers I have also tried:
$targetDir="C:\tmp\"
Get-ChildItem $targetDir -recurse | where {$_.name -like "SAMPLE"} | group path | select name
and:
$targetDir="C:\tmp\"
Get-ChildItem $targetDir -recurse | where {$_.name -like "SAMPLE"} | select name
but it does not return any results.
Select-String is doing what you told it to. Emphasis mine.
The Select-String cmdlet searches for text and text patterns in input strings and files.
So if you are just looking to match with file names just use -Filter of Get-ChildItem or post process with Where-Object
Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -Filter "*sample*"
That should return all files and folders that have sample in their name. If you just wanted files or directories you would be able to use the switches -File or -Directory to return those specific object types.
If your pattern is more complicated than a simple word then you might need to use Where-Object like in Itchydon's answer with something like -match giving you access to regex.
The grouping logic in your code should be redundant since you are returning single files that all have unique paths. Therefore I have not included that here. If you just want the paths then you can pipe into Select-Object -Expand FullName or just (Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Recurse -Filter "*sample*").Fullname
get-ChildItem $targetDir -recurse | where {$_.name -like $pattern} | select name
To complement Matt's helpful answer:
Specifically, because what you're piping to Select-String are [System.IO.FileInfo] objects - which is what Get-ChildItem outputs - rather than strings, it is the contents of the files represented by these objects is being searched.
Assuming that you need to match only the file name part of each file's path and that your pattern can be expressed as a wildcard expression, you do not need Select-String at all and can instead use Get-ChildItem with -Filter, as in Matt's answer, or the slower, but slightly more powerful -Include.
Caveat:
Select-String -Pattern accepts a regular expression (e.g., .*sample.*; see Get-Help about_Regular_Expressions),
whereas Get-ChildItem -Filter/-Include accepts a wildcard expression (e.g., *sample*; see Get-Help about_Wildcards) - they are different things.
On a side note: If your intent is to match files only, you can tell Get-ChildItem to restrict output to files (as opposed to potentially also directories) using -File (analogously, you can limit output to directories with -Directory).
Group-Object path (group path) will not work as intended, because the .Path property of the match-information objects output by Select-String contains the full filename, so you'd be putting each file in its own group - essentially, a no-op.
When using just Get-ChildItem, the equivalent property name would be .FullName, but what you're looking for is to group by parent path (the containing directory's path), .DirectoryName), I presume, therefore:
... | Group-Object DirectoryName | Select-Object Name
This outputs the full path of each directory that contains at least 1 file with a matching file name.
(Note that the Name in Select-Object Name refers to the .Name property of the group objects returned by Group-Object, which in this case is the value of the .DirectoryName property on the input objects.)
To complement the excellent answer by #mklement0, you can ask Powershell to print the full path by appending a pipe as follows:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Force -Filter "*sample*" | %{$_.FullName}
Note: When searching folders where you might get an error based on security, hence we use the SilentlyContinue option.
I went through the answer by #Itchydon
but couldn't follow the use of '-like' $pattern.
I was trying to list files having 32characters(letters and numbers) in the filename.
PS C:> Get-ChildItem C:\Users\ -Recurse | where {$_.name -match "[a-zA-Z0-9]{32}"} | select name
or
PS C:> Get-ChildItem C:\Users\010M\Documents\WindowsPowerShell -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.name -match "[A-Z0-9]{32}"} | select name
So, in this case it doesn't matter whether you use where or where-object.
You can use select-string directly to search for files matching a certain string, yes, this will return the filename:count:content ... etc, but, internally these have names that you can chose or omit, the one you need is the "filename" to do this pipe this into "select-object" choosing the "FileName" from the output.
So, to select all *.MSG files that has the pattern of "Subject: Webservices restarted", you can do the following:
Select-String -Path .*.MSG -Pattern 'Subject: WebServices Restarted'
-List | select-object Filename
Also, to remove these files on the fly, you could pip into a ForEach statement with the RM command as follows:
Select-String -Path .*.MSG -Pattern 'Subject: WebServices Restarted'
-List | select-object Filename | foreach { rm $_.FileName }
I have been reading through some of the previous posts about the concept, but all the solutions i find very different from eachother.
I have multiple csv's devided over seperate folders (all with kind of the same path but the subfolders are different).
I now need to import these csv's, change the headers and export it into one single csv.
I have been trying with this but im getting a very weird error: Import-Csv : Cannot open file "C:\Windows\system32\Book1.csv"
Although my path is refering to C:\csv ?
$CSVFolder = 'C:\csv\'; #'
$OutputFile = 'C:\export\test3.csv';
$CSV= #();
Get-ChildItem -Path $CSVFolder -Filter *.csv | ForEach-Object {
$CSV += #(Import-Csv -Path $_)
}
$CSV | Export-Csv -Path $OutputFile -NoTypeInformation -Force;
I was thinking of using a datatable for the headers, but its not so clear to me at this point. Also the issue with the error is not clear for me...
As has been noted:
Import-Csv -Path $_ should be Import-Csv -Path $_.FullName in your code,
(Strictly speaking, it should be Import-Csv -LiteralPath $_.FullName, because strings passed to the -Path parameter are subject to wildcard resolution).
because the [System.IO.FileInfo] instances representing files returned by Get-ChildItem are converted to strings when they are passed to the -Path (or -LiteralPath) parameter as a command-line argument (as opposed to via the pipeline), in which case the the mere file name rather than the full path is used, if your Get-ChildItem command targets a directory in Windows PowerShell (see background information below).
A mere filename such as Book1.csv is interpreted as relative to the current directory (which happened to be C:\Windows\system32 in your case), so Import-Csv looks for file C:\Windows\system32\Book1.csv rather than the intended C:\csv\Book1.csv.
Note that piping Get-ChildItem output to cmdlets is generally not affected by this, because the .PSPath property (which PowerShell adds behind the scenes) containing the full path (including PS provider prefix) binds to the -LiteralPath parameter.
Note that as of PSv5.1.14393.693, however, this mechanism is broken for Import-Csv, due to a bug.
This is a common pitfall that occurs whenever [System.IO.FileInfo] instances are passed to cmdlets that accept file paths via [string](-array)-typed parameters as arguments.
To be safe: Always use .FullName when you pass objects received from Get-ChildItem to another command as a parameter value (as opposed to via the pipeline) to ensure that the full path is passed.
Optional background information:
This behavior is a pitfall, because it is perfectly reasonable to assume that passing a [System.IO.FileInfo] instance as-is to a command that accepts file paths works, given the object-oriented nature of PowerShell - especially, since it does work reliably when using the pipeline rather than a parameter value.
Unfortunately, the built-in cmdlets that accept file paths (-Path, -LiteralPath parameters) do so as [string]s only (there is no parameter set that accepts [System.IO.FileInfo] instances directly), and it is in the course of [System.IO.FileInfo]-to-string conversion that the problem arises.
There also wouldn't be a problem if the [System.IO.FileInfo] instances consistently evaluated to the files' full paths, which is unfortunately not the case in Windows PowerShell (this has since been fixed in PowerShell Core):
Get-ChildItem <directory> outputs [System.IO.FileInfo] instances that evaluate to file names only in a string context.
Get-ChildItem <literalFilePathOrWildCardExpr> outputs [System.IO.FileInfo] instances that evaluate to full paths.
In other words: It is only if Get-ChildItem targets a directory (folder) that the objects it returns evaluate to their file names only in a string context.
Targeting a specific file or using a wildcard expression results in full paths, by contrast; with Get-Item, that's always the case.
You simply need to 'fullname' property, instead of 'name'.
Ex:
PS /Users/adil/Downloads> gi *csv |select name
Name
----
tradesdownload.csv
PS /Users/adil/Downloads> gi *csv |select name, fullname
Name FullName
---- --------
tradesdownload.csv /Users/adil/Downloads/tradesdownload.csv
try this code. This code take all csv file, import them and take only column 1, 2, 3 and change column name to header1, header2, header3, then export all into new csv file
Get-ChildItem "C:\temp2" -Filter "*.csv" |
%{Import-Csv $_.FullName -Header header1, header3,header4} |
Export-Csv "c:\temp\result.csv" -NoTypeInformation
#a short version (for no purist)
gci "C:\temp2" -Filter "*.csv" | %{ipcsv $_.FullName -Header header1, header3,header4} | epcsv "c:\temp\result.csv" -NoType
How can I delete all files in a directory that contain a string using powershell?
I've tried something like
$list = get-childitem *.milk | select-string -pattern "fRating=2" | Format-Table Path
$list | foreach { rm $_.Path }
And that worked for some files but did not remove everything. I've tried other various things but nothing is working.
I can easily get the list of file names and can create an array with the path's only using
$lista = #(); foreach ($f in $list) { $lista += $f.Path; }
but can't seem to get any command (del, rm, or Remove-Item) to do anything. Just returns immediately without deleting the files or giving errors.
Thanks
First we can simplify your code as:
Get-ChildItem "*.milk" | Select-String -Pattern "fRating=2" | Select-Object -ExcludeProperty path | Remove-Item -Force -Confirm
The lack of action and errors might be addressable by one of two things. The Force parameter which:
Allows the cmdlet to remove items that cannot otherwise be changed,
such as hidden or read-only files or read-only aliases or variables.
I would aslo suggest that you run this script as administrator. Depending where these files are located you might not have permissions. If this is not the case or does not work please include the error you are getting.
Im going to guess the error is:
remove-item : Cannot remove item C:\temp\somefile.txt: The process cannot access the file 'C:\temp\somefile.txt'
because it is being used by another process.
Update
In testing, I was also getting a similar error. Upon research it looks like the Select-String cmd-let was holding onto the file preventing its deletion. Assumption based on i have never seen Get-ChildItem do this before. The solution in that case would be encase the first part of this in parentheses as a sub expression so it would process all the files before going through the pipe.
(Get-ChildItem | Select-String -Pattern "tes" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty path) | Remove-Item -Force -Confirm
Remove -Confirm if deemed required. It exists as a precaution so that you don't open up a new powershell in c:\windows\system32 and copy paste a remove-item cmdlet in there.
Another Update
[ and ] are wildcard searches in powershell in order to escape those in some cmdlets you use -Literalpath. Also Select-String can return multiple hits in files so we should use -Unique
(Get-ChildItem *.milk | Select-String -Pattern "fRating=2" | Select-Object -ExpandProperty path -Unique) | ForEach-Object{Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $_}
Why do you use select-string -pattern "fRating=2"? You would like to select all files with this name?
I think the Format-Table Path don't work. The command Get-ChildItem don't have a property called "Path".
Work this snipped for you?
$list = get-childitem *.milk | Where-Object -FilterScript {$_.Name -match "fRating=2"}
$list | foreach { rm $_.FullName }
The following code gets all files of type *.milk and puts them in $listA, then uses that list to get all the files that contain the string fRating=[01] and stores them in $listB. The files in $listB are deleted and then the number of files deleted versus the number of files that contained the match is displayed(they should be equal).
sv -name listA -value (Get-ChildItem *.milk); sv -name listB -value ($listA | Select-String -Pattern "fRating=[01]"); (($listB | Select-Object -ExpandProperty path) | ForEach-Object {Remove-Item -Force -LiteralPath $_}); (sv -name FCount -value ((Get-ChildItem *.milk).Count)); Write-Host -NoNewline Files Deleted ($listA.Count - $FCount)/($listB.Count)`n;
No need to complicate things:
1. $sourcePath = "\\path\to\the\file\"
2. Remove-Item "$sourcePath*whatever*"
I tried the answer, unfortunately, errors seems to always come up, however, I managed to create a solution to get this done:
Without using Get-ChilItem; You can use select-string directly to search for files matching a certain string, yes, this will return the filename:count:content ... etc, but, internally these have names that you can chose or omit, the one you need is the "filename" to do this pipe this into "select-object" choosing the "FileName" from the output.
So, to select all *.MSG files that has the pattern of "Subject: Webservices restarted", you can do the following:
Select-String -Path .*.MSG -Pattern 'Subject: WebServices Restarted'
-List | select-object Filename
Also, to remove these files on the fly, you could pip into a ForEach statement with the RM command as follows:
Select-String -Path .*.MSG -Pattern 'Subject: WebServices Restarted'
-List | select-object Filename | foreach { rm $_.FileName }
I tried this myself, works 100%.
I hope this helps