I need to iterate over an array of folder names, passing them into GCI so I can run operations on their contents. No matter what I do, it keeps giving me this error:
gci : Illegal characters in path.
At C:\Scripts\Arvest_submission_monitoring.ps1:86 char:5
+ gci -path "D:\subftp\$_" -recurse {
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (D:\SUBFTP\folder1:String [Get-ChildItem], ArgumentException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId :
DirArgumentError,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand
I've created an array:
$folders = "folder1","folder2","folder3"
And then iterate over it:
$folders | % {
gci -Path "D:\subftp\$_" -Recurse {
#do stuff here
}
}
I've tried many various options such as a regex replace to remove any possible illegal characters (although a $folder.Count shows me there are no invisible characters), I've tried turning $folders into a C# ArrayList but it's still a no go. I've even played around with the path variable itself concatenating it into a single string before use.
The weird thing is if I try and execute it from the command line it works fine. What gives? I'm running v5.
It is caused by the curly brace right at the end of your command gci -Path "D:\subftp\$_" -Recurse {.
Probably you wanted to do this:
$folders | ForEach-Object {
Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\subftp\$_" -Recurse | ForEach-Object {
#do stuff here
}
}
Related
I modified PowerShell script from PowerShell - Batch change files encoding To UTF-8.
# Modified version of https://stackoverflow.com/q/18684793
[Threading.Thread]::CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = 'en-US'
$Encoding = New-Object System.Text.UTF8Encoding($True) # If UTF8Encoding($False), It will be UTF-8 without BOM
$source = "C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\SRC" # source directory
$destination = "C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\DST" # destination directory
if (!(Test-Path $destination)) {
New-Item -Path $destination -ItemType Directory | Out-Null
}
# Delete all previously generated file
Get-ChildItem -Path $destination -Include * -File -Recurse | ForEach-Object {$_.Delete()}
# Recursively convert all files into UTF-8
foreach ($i in Get-ChildItem $source -Force -Recurse -Exclude "desktop.ini") {
if ($i.PSIsContainer) {
continue
}
$name = $i.Fullname.Replace($source, $destination)
$content = Get-Content $i.Fullname
if ($null -ne $content) {
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllLines($name, $content, $Encoding)
} else {
Write-Host "No content from: $i"
}
}
But after using it, I've found that PS cannot handle [ or ] well.
I made some test files that has diversity in name/content.
Get-Content : An object at the specified path C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\SRC\FILENAME[[[[[[]]]]]]]].txt does not exist, or
has been filtered by the -Include or -Exclude parameter.
At C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\Convert_to_UTF-8.ps1:24 char:16
+ $content = Get-Content $i.Fullname
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (System.String[]:String[]) [Get-Content], Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ItemNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand
Since I cannot embed images in question, here is link of IMGUR album.
Full image list: https://imgur.com/a/aN1RG2L
These are what I've tested:
Test files have different names. Their name contains space, ',
[]. Also made up different language(Japanese, Korean).
These files have same content, encoded with UCS-2 BE BOM(UTF-16 BE) so
that I can check if it has re-encoded to UTF-8.
How can I make my script handle [ or ] in file name well?
tl;dr
Indeed, use of the -LiteralPath parameter is the best solution (in PowerShell (Core) v6+, you can shorten to -lp):
$content = Get-Content -LiteralPath $i.Fullname
-LiteralPath ensures that $i.Fullname is taken verbatim (literally); that is, [ and ] in the path are interpreted as themselves rather than having special meaning, as they would have as a -Path argument, due to being interpreted as a wildcard expression - note that -Path is positionally implied if you only pass a value (a string) as the first argument, as you did (Get-Content $i.FullName)
Note: This answer analogously applies to all cmdlets that have both -Path and -LiteralPath parameters, such as Set-Content, Out-File, and Set-Location.
As for what you tried:
$content = Get-Content $i.Fullname
is effectively the same as:
$content = Get-Content -Path $i.Fullname
That is, the (first) positional argument passed to Get-Content is implicitly bound to the
-Path parameter.
The -Path parameter accepts wildcard expressions to allow matching paths by patterns; in addition to support for * (any run of characters) and ? (exactly 1 character), [...] inside a wildcard pattern denotes a character set or range (e.g., [12] or [0-9]).
Therefore an actual path that contains [...], e.g., foo[10].txt, is not recognized as such, because the [10] is interpreted as a character set matching a single character that is either 1 or 0; that is foo[10].txt would match foo0.txt and foo1.txt, but not a file literally named foo[10].txt.
When (implicitly) using -Path, it is possible to escape [ and ] instances that should be interpreted verbatim, namely via the backtick (`), but note that this can get tricky to get right when quoting and/or variable references are involved.
If you know a path to be a literal path, it is best to form a habit of using -LiteralPath (which in PowerShell Core you can shorten to -lp).
However, if your path contains literal [ and ] and you also need wildcard matching, you must use `-escaping - see this answer.
There are at least two situations where the solution's good advice doesn't hold, unfortunately.
Selective error handling
Get-Content -LiteralPath "nobox[]" gives an error message and exception type as if wildcards are involved:
Get-Content : An object at the specified path box[] does not exist, or has been filtered by the -Include or -Exclude parameter.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-Content -Path "nobox[]"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (System.String[]:String[]) [Get-Content], Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ItemNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand
whereas without the brackets, we get:
Get-Content : Cannot find path 'nobox' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-Content -LiteralPath "nobox"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (nobox:String) [Get-Content], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand
Therefore, to silently deal with an optional file, something like:
try {
$lines = Get-Content -LiteralPath $path -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch [System.Management.Automation.ItemNotFoundException] {
$lines = #()
}
chokes on paths with brackets.
Creating a hard or symbolic link
A minor and a major caveat:
The Path parameter, the name of the new item, "works like the LiteralPath parameter of other cmdlets", says the documentation of New-Item clearly, and that seems true and makes sense. Though I wish we could clarify that by writing -LiteralPath.
The Value parameter, the target of the link (also known as Target secretly in v5 and openly later), does not accept wildcard characters according to the same documentation, but that's a lie. The command:
New-Item -ItemType "HardLink" -Path "whatever" -Target "*"
makes Powershell squeal "Cannot set the location because path '*' resolved to multiple containers.".
So you always need the escapes for the target. If you have a file named "f[]", then this will display an error:
New-Item -ItemType "HardLink" -Path "whatever" -Target "f[]"
and this will create a link:
New-Item -ItemType "HardLink" -Path "f[2]" -Target ([WildcardPattern]::Escape("f[]"))
Same for ItemType "SymbolicLink".
I modified PowerShell script from PowerShell - Batch change files encoding To UTF-8.
# Modified version of https://stackoverflow.com/q/18684793
[Threading.Thread]::CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = 'en-US'
$Encoding = New-Object System.Text.UTF8Encoding($True) # If UTF8Encoding($False), It will be UTF-8 without BOM
$source = "C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\SRC" # source directory
$destination = "C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\DST" # destination directory
if (!(Test-Path $destination)) {
New-Item -Path $destination -ItemType Directory | Out-Null
}
# Delete all previously generated file
Get-ChildItem -Path $destination -Include * -File -Recurse | ForEach-Object {$_.Delete()}
# Recursively convert all files into UTF-8
foreach ($i in Get-ChildItem $source -Force -Recurse -Exclude "desktop.ini") {
if ($i.PSIsContainer) {
continue
}
$name = $i.Fullname.Replace($source, $destination)
$content = Get-Content $i.Fullname
if ($null -ne $content) {
[System.IO.File]::WriteAllLines($name, $content, $Encoding)
} else {
Write-Host "No content from: $i"
}
}
But after using it, I've found that PS cannot handle [ or ] well.
I made some test files that has diversity in name/content.
Get-Content : An object at the specified path C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\SRC\FILENAME[[[[[[]]]]]]]].txt does not exist, or
has been filtered by the -Include or -Exclude parameter.
At C:\Users\AKULA\Desktop\Convert_to_UTF-8.ps1:24 char:16
+ $content = Get-Content $i.Fullname
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (System.String[]:String[]) [Get-Content], Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ItemNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand
Since I cannot embed images in question, here is link of IMGUR album.
Full image list: https://imgur.com/a/aN1RG2L
These are what I've tested:
Test files have different names. Their name contains space, ',
[]. Also made up different language(Japanese, Korean).
These files have same content, encoded with UCS-2 BE BOM(UTF-16 BE) so
that I can check if it has re-encoded to UTF-8.
How can I make my script handle [ or ] in file name well?
tl;dr
Indeed, use of the -LiteralPath parameter is the best solution (in PowerShell (Core) v6+, you can shorten to -lp):
$content = Get-Content -LiteralPath $i.Fullname
-LiteralPath ensures that $i.Fullname is taken verbatim (literally); that is, [ and ] in the path are interpreted as themselves rather than having special meaning, as they would have as a -Path argument, due to being interpreted as a wildcard expression - note that -Path is positionally implied if you only pass a value (a string) as the first argument, as you did (Get-Content $i.FullName)
Note: This answer analogously applies to all cmdlets that have both -Path and -LiteralPath parameters, such as Set-Content, Out-File, and Set-Location.
As for what you tried:
$content = Get-Content $i.Fullname
is effectively the same as:
$content = Get-Content -Path $i.Fullname
That is, the (first) positional argument passed to Get-Content is implicitly bound to the
-Path parameter.
The -Path parameter accepts wildcard expressions to allow matching paths by patterns; in addition to support for * (any run of characters) and ? (exactly 1 character), [...] inside a wildcard pattern denotes a character set or range (e.g., [12] or [0-9]).
Therefore an actual path that contains [...], e.g., foo[10].txt, is not recognized as such, because the [10] is interpreted as a character set matching a single character that is either 1 or 0; that is foo[10].txt would match foo0.txt and foo1.txt, but not a file literally named foo[10].txt.
When (implicitly) using -Path, it is possible to escape [ and ] instances that should be interpreted verbatim, namely via the backtick (`), but note that this can get tricky to get right when quoting and/or variable references are involved.
If you know a path to be a literal path, it is best to form a habit of using -LiteralPath (which in PowerShell Core you can shorten to -lp).
However, if your path contains literal [ and ] and you also need wildcard matching, you must use `-escaping - see this answer.
There are at least two situations where the solution's good advice doesn't hold, unfortunately.
Selective error handling
Get-Content -LiteralPath "nobox[]" gives an error message and exception type as if wildcards are involved:
Get-Content : An object at the specified path box[] does not exist, or has been filtered by the -Include or -Exclude parameter.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-Content -Path "nobox[]"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (System.String[]:String[]) [Get-Content], Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ItemNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand
whereas without the brackets, we get:
Get-Content : Cannot find path 'nobox' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-Content -LiteralPath "nobox"
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (nobox:String) [Get-Content], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetContentCommand
Therefore, to silently deal with an optional file, something like:
try {
$lines = Get-Content -LiteralPath $path -ErrorAction Stop
}
catch [System.Management.Automation.ItemNotFoundException] {
$lines = #()
}
chokes on paths with brackets.
Creating a hard or symbolic link
A minor and a major caveat:
The Path parameter, the name of the new item, "works like the LiteralPath parameter of other cmdlets", says the documentation of New-Item clearly, and that seems true and makes sense. Though I wish we could clarify that by writing -LiteralPath.
The Value parameter, the target of the link (also known as Target secretly in v5 and openly later), does not accept wildcard characters according to the same documentation, but that's a lie. The command:
New-Item -ItemType "HardLink" -Path "whatever" -Target "*"
makes Powershell squeal "Cannot set the location because path '*' resolved to multiple containers.".
So you always need the escapes for the target. If you have a file named "f[]", then this will display an error:
New-Item -ItemType "HardLink" -Path "whatever" -Target "f[]"
and this will create a link:
New-Item -ItemType "HardLink" -Path "f[2]" -Target ([WildcardPattern]::Escape("f[]"))
Same for ItemType "SymbolicLink".
I'm a Powershell novice so apologies for any wrong terminology. I've had a look on SE and I know how to recursively descend into a directory structure, however all the working examples I can find seem to pipe the output of Get-ChildItem, which I can't understand how to further work with the file before the loop iterates.
What I'm trying to do
Provide my script with a directory: C:\Users\Donglecow\myPictures\.
Recursively loop through all directories in the defined directory (I have an extensive file structure).
Find all files which match a filter thumbnail*.jpg, EG: thumbnail_001.jpg
Rename the file to BACKUP-thumbnail*.jpg
Check the dimensions of that image in pixels and print them out to the command line
What I've got so far
param (
[string]$dir = $pwd
)
write-output "Working from $($dir)"
$foundJpg = get-childitem -Recurse -Filter thumbnail*.jpg $dir
foreach($file in $foundJpg) {
write-output "Found $($file)"
#Rename to Backup...
#Check image dimensions...
#Do other stuff...
}
This works and outputs the correct file name, but when I try to rename the file I get an error.
Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name.replace("thumbnail", "SAFE-thumbnail.jpg") }
Rename-Item : Cannot evaluate parameter 'NewName' because its argument is specified as a script block and there is no
input. A script block cannot be evaluated without input.
At C:\Users\Donglecow\myPictures\med.ps1:9 char:23
+ ... -Item -NewName { $_.Name.replace("thumbnail", "SAFE-thumbnail.jpg") }
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : MetadataError: (:) [Rename-Item], ParameterBindingException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : ScriptBlockArgumentNoInput,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RenameItemCommand
I've deducted this is probably because I've tried to adapt from a command that pipes the output as shown in answers on this question:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.mp3 | Rename-Item –NewName { $_.name –replace 'xyz','abc' }
Whereas I'm using a different construct for my loop so that I can further interact with each file that I find.
My environment
For reference, a snippet of my file structure is below.
C:\Users\Donglecow\myPictures\
1\001\thumbnail_001.jpg
1\002\thumbnail_001.jpg
1\003\thumbnail_001.jpg
2\001\thumbnail_001.jpg
etc...
Where am I going wrong here?
Try this:
foreach($file in $foundJpg) {
$File | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name.replace("thumbnail", "SAFE-thumbnail.jpg") }
#Do other stuff...
}
You need to use $file as the input of the command (which you should be able to do via the pipeline as shown above) as this is what your ForEach loop is using to represent each item retrieved by Get-ChildItem into the $foundJpg variable.
I have a file move script that looks for files with keywords in the name and moves them to a specific folder. There's about a hundred lines that all work fine, except for one of them, and the only thing I can think of is that the file has brackets in the name.
I'm already using -LiteralPath to grab the full path, but the error is weird. I've tried double quotes, double backticks, and some other options that I've found elsewhere on the boards, but nothing is working.
Here is all the relevant parts of the script (without posting the whole thing):
# Source folders
$RecipesFolder = "F:\Downloads\Downloaded Recipes\"
# Destination Folders Drive I
$CoffeeRecipes = "I:\My Recipes\Coffee Recipes\"
# Get list of files
$Files = Get-ChildItem $RecipesFolder -File -Recurse
# Process Files
foreach ($File in $Files) {
if ($File -match "Coffee") {
Move-Item -LiteralPath $RecipesFolder$File -Destination "$CoffeeRecipes" -Force
}
It's a really simple script, and every other line works fine, except that one. All the lines are written identically.
This is the full error I get (sourcepath obfuscated for security), and thank you in advance for any assistance:
Move-Item : Cannot move item because the item at 'F:\Downloads\Downloaded Recipes\[1]
Coffee Recipe - 11[1].txt' does not exist.
At Path-to-powershell-script-file:153 char:13
+ Move-Item -LiteralPath $RecipesFolder$File -Destina ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : InvalidOperation: (:) [Move-Item], PSInvalidOperationException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidOperation,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.MoveItemCommand
When I receive this error, the file disappears, and doesn't get moved to the folder, it just vanishes.
I need to rename all files below pwd named all_v4_0.csv to all_v4_1.csv.
So far, I have worked my way to this piece of PowerShell:
$oldfiles = dir -recurse | ?{$_.Name -eq "all_v4_0.csv"}
foreach ($o in $oldfiles) {
$o.CopyTo Join-Path $o.Directory.ToString() "all_v4_1.csv"
}
But the foreach loop fails with the message that
At line:2 char:15
+ $o.CopyTo Join-Path $o.Directory.ToString() "all_v4_1.csv"
+ ~~~~~~~~~
Unexpected token 'Join-Path' in expression or statement.
+ CategoryInfo : ParserError: (:) [], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : UnexpectedToken
What am I doing wrong here?
Update, 20150604
As commented below by Manuel Batsching, the original version can be fixed by adding two layers of parentheses: one to indicate function argument, and one to force evaluation order:
$oldfiles = dir -recurse | ?{$_.Name -eq "all_v4_0.csv"}
foreach ($o in $oldfiles) {
$o.CopyTo((Join-Path $o.Directory.ToString() "all_v4_1.csv"))
}
For the problem at hand, one of the solutions with .FullName.Replace would probably be easier.
PSH's parser is not reading the Join-Path and its arguments as an expression to evaluate and pass result to outer expression. So parentheses to force evaluation order.
But additionally CopyTo is a .NET member, rather than a PSH cmdlet, so it needs to have parentheses around its argument (and no space).
Thus:
$o.CopyTo((Join-Path $o.Directory.ToString() "all_v4_1.csv"))
(Possibly using PSH's Copy-Item cmdlet would be a cleaner option.)
Set the target name separately before doing the copy. The below should work:
$oldfiles = dir -recurse | ?{$_.Name -eq "all_v4_0.csv"}
foreach ($o in $oldfiles) {
$newName = $o.FullName.replace("all_v4_0.csv","all_v4_1.csv")
Copy-Item $o.FullName $newName
}
If you want to keep things simple you can also use string concatenation to create the target path.
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Include 'all_v4_0.csv' |
ForEach { $_.MoveTo($_.Directory.FullName + '\all_v4_1.csv') }
Simply replace the substring in the new name of the files:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Include 'all_v4_0.csv' |
Rename-Item -NewName { $_.Name.Replace('4_0', '4_1') }