I'm finishing a script in PowerShell and this is what I must do:
Find and retrieve all .txt files inside a folder
Read their contents (there is a number inside that must be less than 50)
If any of these files has a number greater than 50, change a flag which will allow me to send a crit message to a monitoring server.
The piece of code below is what I already have, but it's probably wrong because I haven't given any argument to Get-Content, it's probably something very simple, but I'm still getting used to PowerShell. Any suggestions? Thanks a lot.
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\temp_erase\PID -Directory -Filter *.txt |
ForEach-Object{
$warning_counter = Get-Content
if ($warning_counter -gt '50')
{
$crit_counter = 1
Write-Host "CRITICAL: Failed to kill service more than 50 times!"
}
}
but it's probably wrong because I haven't given any argument to Get-Content
Yes. That is the first issue. Have a look at Get-Help <command> and or docs like TechNet when you are lost. For the core cmdlets you will always see examples.
Second, Get-Content, returns string arrays (by default), so if you are doing a numerical comparison you need to treat the value as such.
Thirdly you have a line break between foreach-object cmdlet and its opening brace. That will land you a parsing problem and PS will prompt for the missing process block. So changing just those mentioned ....
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\temp_erase\PID -Directory -Filter *.txt | ForEach-Object{
[int]$warning_counter = Get-Content $_.FullName
if ($warning_counter -gt '50')
{
$crit_counter = 1
Write-Host "CRITICAL: Failed to kill service more than 50 times!"
}
}
One obvious thing missing from this is you do not show which file triggered the message. You should update your notification/output process. You also have no logic validating file contents. The could easily fail, either procedural or programically, on files with non numerical contents.
Related
EDIT
I think I now know what the issue is - The copy numbers are not REALLY part of the filename. Therefore, when the array pulls it and then is used to get the match info, the file as it is in the array does not exist, only the file name with no copy number.
I tried writing a rename script but the same issue exists... only the few files I manually renamed (so they don't contain copy numbers) were renamed (successfully) by the script. All others are shown not to exist.
How can I get around this? I really do not want to manually work with 23000+ files. I am drawing a blank..
HELP PLEASE
I am trying to narrow down a folder full of emails (copies) with the same name "SCADA Alert.eml", "SCADA Alert[1].eml"...[23110], based on contents. And delete the emails from the folder that meet specific content criteria.
When I run it I keep getting the error in the subject line above. It only sees the first file and the rest it says do not exist...
The script reads through the folder, creates an array of names (does this correctly).
Then creates an variable, $email, and assigns the content of that file. for each $filename in the array.
(this is where is breaks)
Then is should match the specific string I am looking for to the content of the $email var and return true or false. If true I want it to remove the email, $filename, from the folder.
Thus narrowing down the email I have to review.
Any help here would be greatly appreciated.
This is what I have so far... (Folder is in the root of C:)
$array = Get-ChildItem -name -Path $FolderToRead #| Get-Content | Tee C:\Users\baudet\desktop\TargetFile.txt
Foreach ($FileName in $array){
$FileName # Check File
$email = Get-Content $FolderToRead\$FileName
$email # Check Content
$ContainsString = "False" # Set Var
$ContainsString # Verify Var
$ContainsString = %{$email -match "SYS$,ROC"} # Look for String
$ContainsString # Verify result of match
#if ($ContainsString -eq "True") {
#Remove-Item $FolderToRead\$element
#}
}
Here's a PowerShell-idiomatic solution that also resolves your original problems:
Get-ChildItem -File -LiteralPath $FolderToRead | Where-Object {
(Get-Content -Raw -LiteralPath $_.FullName) -match 'SYS\$,ROC'
} | Remove-Item -WhatIf
Note: The -WhatIf common parameter in the command above previews the operation. Remove -WhatIf once you're sure the operation will do what you want.
Note how the $ character in the RHS regex of the -match operator is \-escaped in order to use it verbatim (rather than as metacharacter $, the end-of-input anchor).
Also, given that $ is also used in PowerShell's string interpolation, it's better to use '...' strings (single-quoted, verbatim strings) to represent regexes, assuming no actual up-front string expansion is needed before the regex engine sees the resulting string - see this answer for more information.
As for what you tried:
The error message stemmed from the fact that Get-Content $FolderToRead\$FileName binds the file-name argument, $FolderToRead\$FileName, implicitly (positionally) to Get-Content's -Path parameter, which expects PowerShell wildcard patterns.
Since your file names literally contain [ and ] characters, they are misinterpreted by the (implied) -Path parameter, which can be avoided by using the -LiteralPath parameter instead (which must be specified explicitly, as a named argument).
%{$email -match "SYS$,ROC"} is unnecessarily wrapped in a ForEach-Object call (% is a built-in alias); while that doesn't do any harm in this case, it adds unnecessary overhead;
$email -match "SYS$,ROC" is enough, though it needs to be corrected to
$email -match 'SYS\$,ROC', as explained above.
[System.IO.Directory]::EnumerateFiles($Folder) |
Where-Object {$true -eq [System.IO.File]::ReadAllText($_, [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8).Contains('SYS$,ROC') } |
ForEach-Object {
Write-Host "Removing $($_)"
#[System.IO.File]::Delete($_)
}
Your mistakes:
%{$email -match "SYS$,ROC"} - What % is intended to be? This is ForEach-Object alias.
%{$email -match "SYS$,ROC"} - Why use -match? This is much slower than -like or String.Contains()
%{$email -match "SYS$,ROC"} - When using $ inside double quotes, you should escape this using single backtick symbol (I have `$100). Otherwise, everything after $ is variable name: Hello, $username; I's $($weather.ToString()) today!
Write debug output in a right way: use Write-Debug, Write-Verbose, Write-Host, Write-Warning, Write-Error, Write-Information.
Can be better:
Avoid using Get-ChildItem, because Get-ChildItem returns files with attributes (like mtime, atime, ctime, etc). This additional info is additional request per file. When you need only list of files, use native .Net EnumerateFiles from System.IO.Directory. This is significant performace boost on huge amounts of files.
Use RealAllText or ReadAllLines or ReadAllBytes from System.IO.File static class to be more concrete instead of using universal Get-Content.
Use pipelines ;-)
We are copying a long list of files from their different directories into a single location (same server). Once there, I need to rename them.
I was able to move the files until I found out that there are duplicates in the list of file names to move (and rename). It would not allow me to copy the file multiple times into the same destination.
Here is the list of file names after the move:
"10.csv",
"11.csv",
"12.csv",
"13.csv",
"14.csv",
"15.csv",
"16.csv",
"17.csv",
"18.csv",
"19.csv",
"20.csv",
"Invoices_Export(16) - Copy.csv" (this one's name should be "Zebra.csv")
I wrote a couple of foreach loops, but it is not working exactly correctly.
The script moves the files just fine. It is the rename that is not working the way I want. The first file does not rename; the other files rename. However, they leave the moved file in place too.
This script requires a csv that has 3 columns:
Path of the file, including the file name (eg. c:\temp\smefile.txt)
Destination of the file, including the file name (eg. c:\temp\smefile.txt)
New name of the file. Just the name and extention.
# Variables
$Path = (import-csv C:\temp\Test-CSV.csv).Path
$Dest = (import-csv C:\temp\Test-CSV.csv).Destination
$NN = (import-csv C:\temp\Test-CSV.csv).NewName
#Script
foreach ($D in $Dest) {
$i -eq 0
Foreach ($P in $Path) {
Copy-Item $P -destination C:\Temp\TestDestination -force
}
rename-item -path "$D" -newname $NN[$i] -force
$i += 1
}
There were no error per se, just not the outcome that I expected.
Welcome to Stack Overflow!
There are a couple ways to approach the duplicate names situation:
Check if the file exists already in the destination with Test-Path. If it does, start a while loop that appends a number to the end of the name and check if that exists. Increment the number you append after each check with Test-Path. Keep looping until Test-Path comes back $false and then break out of the loop.
Write an error message and skip that row in the CSV.
I'm going to show a refactored version of your script with approach #2 above:
$csv = Import-Csv 'C:\temp\Test-CSV.csv'
foreach ($row in $csv)
{
$fullDestinationPath = Join-Path -Path $row.Destination -ChildPath $row.NewName
if (Test-Path $fullDestinationPath)
{
Write-Error ("The path '$fullDestinationPath' already exists. " +
"Skipping row for $($row.Path).")
continue
}
# You may also want to check if $row.Path exists before attempting to copy it
Copy-Item -Path $row.Path -Destination $fullDestinationPath
}
Now that your question is answered, here are some thoughts for improving your code:
Avoid using acronyms and abbreviations in identifiers (variable names, function names, etc.) when possible. Remember that code is written for humans and someone else has to be able to understand your code; make everything as obvious as possible. Someone else will have to read your code eventually, even if it's Future-You™!
Don't Repeat Yourself (called the "DRY" principle). As Lee_daily mentioned in the comments, you don't need to import the CSV file three times. Import it once into a variable and then use the variable to access the properties.
Try to be consistent. PowerShell is case-insensitive, but you should pick a style and stick to it (i.e. ForEach or foreach, Rename-Item or rename-item, etc.). I would recommend PascalCase as PowerShell cmdlets are all in PascalCase.
Wrap literal paths in single quotes (or double quotes if you need string interpolation). Paths can have spaces in them and without quotes, PowerShell interprets a space as you are passing another argument.
$i -eq 0 is not an assignment statement, it is a boolean expression. When you run $i -eq 0, PowerShell will return $true or $false because you are asking it if the value stored in $i is 0. To assign the value 0 to $i, you need to write it like this: $i = 0.
There's nothing wrong with $i += 1, but it could be shortened to $i++, if you want to.
When you can, try to check for common issues that may come up with your code. Always think about what can go wrong. "If I copy a file, what can go wrong? Does the source file or folder exist? Is the name pulled from the CSV a valid path name or does it contain characters that are invalid in a path (like :)?" This is called defensive programming and it will save you so so many headaches. As with anything in life, be careful not to go overboard. Only check for likely scenarios; rare edge-cases should just raise errors.
Write some decent logs so you can see what happened at runtime. PowerShell provides a pair of great cmdlets called Start-Transcript and Stop-Transcript. These cmdlets log all the output that was sent to the PowerShell console window, in addition to some system information like the version of PowerShell installed on the machine. Very handy!
I am new to PowerShell and new to IT. I've been asked by my boss to write a PowerShell script that will identify filenames that have no file extension and then change them to .PDF files. After doing some research online I've found a script that had a similar purpose and tried to tailor it to my needs:
$proj_files = Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.Extension -eq "."}
ForEach ($file in $proj_files) {
$filenew = $file.Name + ".pdf"
Rename-Item $file $filenew
}
My first question is does the logic in this script make sense? Is "Extension -eq "." the correct syntax to specify a filename with no extension? My other thought was to use Extension -eq "null" or something similar. If I do need to use a null value, what would that look like? My other question is how would I specify a given directory for this script to search through, or would I even need to? My thought here would be to specify the path under Get-ChildItem, like so: $proj_files = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\Users\mthomas\Documents | Where-Object {$_.Extension -eq ".'} Does that seem correct? I am hesitant to test this out before getting a second opinion because I don't want to change every file extension on my computer or something stupid like that. Anyhow, thanks everyone for the help.
You can do something like the following to find files in a directory without an extension, and rename them to have a PDF extension:
$directory = "C:\Path\To\Directory"
Get-ChildItem -File $directory | Where-Object { -Not $_.Extension } | Foreach-Object {
$_ | Rename-Item -NewName "$($_.Name).pdf"
}
Let's break this down
$directory = "C:\Path\To\Directory"
This is where we set the directory we want to locate files without extensions in. It doesn't have to be set as a static variable but since you are just getting your feet wet with Powershell this keeps it simple.
Get-ChildItem -File $directory
Get-ChildItem is the cmdlet which is used to list directory contents (also aliased to gci, ls, and dir). -File tells it to only list files, and $directory references the directory we want to search from, which we set above. Note that Get-ChildItem might behave differently depending on the provider (for example, you can also use Get-ChildItem on a registry key), but if you are working with a filesystem path you do not need to worry about additional providers for this case.
|
Passes the previous output down the pipeline. This is a common operator in Powershell, but basically you can string commands together using it. You can read more about the pipeline at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/getting-started/fundamental/understanding-the-windows-powershell-pipeline?view=powershell-6
Where-Object { -Not $_.Extension }
Where-Object evaluates a condition on one or more items, and filters out items that do not meet the condition. Since Get-ChildItem can return one or more files, we use the -Not operator in the ScriptBlock (denoted by {} and make sure that there is no extension on the file. $_, or $PSItem, is a special variable used by the pipeline, in this case $_ equals each item returned by Get-ChildItem. The Extension property exists on files returned by Get-ChildItem, and will be blank, or evaluated as $False. So filtering on -Not $_.Extension is the same as saying to only match objects that are missing a file extension. Where-Object can be read about in more detail here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/where-object?view=powershell-6
Foreach-Object { SCRIPTBLOCK }
Similar to Where-Object, but runs code for each object in the pipeline rather than evaluating and filtering out objects which don't match a condition. In this case, we pipe the each file without an extension to Rename-Item, which I'll break down further below. More information on Foreach-Object can be read about here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/foreach-object?view=powershell-6
$_ | Rename-Item -NewName "$($_.Name).pdf"
Rename the current file in the Foreach-Object block to the new name with .pdf appended. The "$( ... )" is called a sub-expression, which is a string interpolation technique that lets you run a command within a string, and make its output part of the string. You could achieve the same effect by doing $_ | Rename-Item -NewName ( $_.Name + ".pdf" ) which just adds a .pdf to the end of the current name.
Summary
The pipeline is a very powerful tool in Powershell, and is key to writing efficient and less bloated scripts. It might seem complex at first, but the more you use it the less daunting it will seem. I highly suggest reading the additional documentation I linked to above as it should help fill in any gaps I may have missed in my explanations above.
To simplify the breakdown above, the command does this, in this order: Gets all files in the specified directory, selects only the files that do not have an extension, then renames each file found without an extension to have a .pdf at the end.
The logic in the script - the overall shape - makes understandable sense, but is not right for it to work as you intend.
Testing on my computer here:
new-item -ItemType File -Name 'test'
get-item test | format-list *
get-item test | foreach { $_.extension; $_.Extension.length; $_.extension.GetType().name }
a file with no extension shows up with an empty string (blank content, length 0, type String, so your where-object { $_.Extension -eq "." } needs to be looking for "" instead of ".".
But:
Get-ChildItem | Where-Object { $_.Extension -eq '' }
shows me some folders as well, because they also have no extension in their name, so you might want Get-ChildItem -File to restrict it to just files.
how would I specify a given directory for this script to search through, or would I even need to?
It would run in the current directory, whichever shows up in your prompt PS C:\wherever> so if you need it to run somewhere else, yes you'd need to change to that folder or specify in get-childitem -LiteralPath 'c:\path\to\wherever'. You haven't mentioned subfolders, if you need those included, get-childitem -Recurse switch as well.
Speaking of subfolders, your $filenew = $file.Name + ".pdf" only makes sense in the current directory, I think it would work better if you used the full filename including path, so they definitely get renamed in the same place they were found $filenew = $file.FullName + ".pdf"
Is "Extension -eq "." the correct syntax to specify a filename with no extension?
Being careful here, what you wrote in your question was correct syntax but incorrect string content. What you've written here with quotes on the left of Extension is incorrect syntax.
My other thought was to use Extension -eq "null" or something similar. If I do need to use a null value, what would that look like?
And being careful here, "null" is not a null value, it's a string containing the four letter word 'null'.
You don't need to use a null value here, normally if you do it looks like $null, but in this case you could use where-object { [string]::IsNullOrEmpty($_.Extension) } but there's no benefit to it, I think.
And, as a stylistic choice, both "" and '' are strings, but "" can contain variables and sub-expressions, so if you have plain text it's a neat habit to use '' for it because it makes it clear to the reader that you intend there to be nothing special happening in this string.
Then your code, with parameter names given, looks more like:
$proj_files = Get-ChildItem -LiteralPath 'C:\Users\mthomas\Documents' |
Where-Object {$_.Extension -eq '.'}
foreach ($file in $proj_files)
{
$filenew = $file.FullName + '.pdf'
Rename-Item -LiteralPath $file.FullName -NewName $filenew
}
If you want to see what it will do, use -WhatIf on the end of Rename-Item:
Rename-Item -LiteralPath $file.FullName -NewName $filenew -WhatIf
Then it won't make the changes, just tell you what it would do.
I am hesitant to test this out before getting a second opinion because I don't want to change every file extension on my computer or something stupid like that
Sensible. But internet people are going to tell you to test their code before running it, because ultimately it's your responsibility to safeguard your files, rather than trust random code from the internet, so having test folders, having a spare machine, having a good backup, playing with PowerShell in pieces until you are happy with what they do, they're all good habits to get into as well.
I'm trying to teach myself enough powershell or batch programming to figure out to achieve the following (I've had a search and looked through a couple hours of Youtube tutorials but can't quite piece it all together to figure out what I need - I don't get Tokens, for example, but they seem necessary in the For loop). Also, not sure if the below is best achieved by robocopy or xcopy.
Task:
Define a list of files to retrieve in a csv (file name will be listed as a 13 digit number, extension will be UNKNOWN, but will usually be .jpg but might occasionally be .png - could this be achieved with a wildcard?)
list would read something like:
9780761189931
9780761189988
9781579657159
For each line in this text file, do:
Search a network folder and all subfolders
If exact filename is found, copy to an arbitrary target (say a new folder created on desktop)
(Not 100% necessary, but nice to have) Once the For loop has completed, output a list of files copied into a text file in the newly created destination folder
I gather that I'll maybe need to do a couple of things first, like define variables for the source and destination folders? I found the below elsewhere but couldn't quite get my head around it.
set src_folder=O:\2017\By_Month\Covers
set dst_folder=c:\Users\%USERNAME&\Desktop\GetCovers
for /f "tokens=*" %%i in (ISBN.txt) DO (
xcopy /K "%src_folder%\%%i" "%dst_folder%"
)
Thanks in advance!
This solution is in powershell, by the way.
To get all subfiles of a folder, use Get-ChildItem and the pipeline, and you can then compare the name to the insides of your CSV (which you can get using import-CSV, by the way).
Get-ChildItem -path $src_folder -recurse | foreach{$_.fullname}
I'd personally then use a function to edit the name as a string, but I know this probably isn't the best way to do it. Create a function outside of the pipeline, and have it return a modified path in such a way that you can continue the previous line like this:
Get-ChildItem -path $src_folder -recurse | foreach{$_.CopyTo (edit-path $_.fullname)}
Where "edit-directory" is your function that takes in the path, and modifies it to return your destination path. Also, you can alternatively use robocopy or xcopy instead of CopyTo, but Copy-Item is a powershell native and doesn't require much string manipulation (which in my experience, the less, the better).
Edit: Here's a function that could do the trick:
function edit-path{
Param([string] $path)
$modified_path = $dst_folder + "\"
$modified_path = $path.substring($src_folder.length)
return $modified_path
}
Edit: Here's how to integrate the importing from CSV, so that the copy only happens to files that are written in the CSV (which I had left out, oops):
$csv = import-csv $CSV_path
Get-ChildItem -path $src_folder -recurse | where-object{$csv -contains $_.name} | foreach{$_.CopyTo (edit-path $_.fullname)}
Note that you have to put the whole CSV path in the $CSV_path variable, and depending on how the contents of that file are written, you may have to use $_.fullname, or other parameters.
This seems like an average enough problem:
$Arr = Import-CSV -Path $CSVPath
Get-ChildItem -Path $Folder -Recurse |
Where-Object -FilterScript { $Arr -contains $PSItem.Name.Substring(0,($PSItem.Length - 4)) } |
ForEach-Object -Process {
Copy-Item -Destination $env:UserProfile\Desktop
$PSItem.Name | Out-File -FilePath $env:UserProfile\Desktop\Results.txt -Append
}
I'm not great with string manipulation so the string bit is a bit confusing, but here's everything spelled out.
I'm working with an application that creates a log file. Due to an error in the software itself, it keeps producing three errors I'm not interested in. Each line has a unique identifier so I can't just replace the line since each one is different.
I have two main issues with this: I need to save it with the same name, and while it works the file should be available (in case the logger needs to write something).
I can't hard-code the original app to prevent it from writing that part of the log.
I have tried so far:
Get-Content log.log | Where-Object {$_-notmatch 'ERROR1' -And $_-notmatch 'ERROR2' -And $_-notmatch 'ERROR3' } `|Set-Content log_stripped.log
^ It only works if the output file has a different name.
Get-Content error.log | foreach-object { Where-Object {$_-notmatch 'ERROR1' -And $_-notmatch 'ERROR2' -And $_-notmatch 'ERROR3' } } | Set-Content error.log
^ This one froze my PS session.
I also tried reading the file to a variable:
$logcontent = ${h:error.log}
but I got System.OutOfMemoryException.
Ideally, what I need is something that reads the log file, takes away all the lines I don't want, and then save it with its original name.
Ideas? (Keep in mind that the log file is +/- 900 MB with the unnecesary data and 45mb once I strip the data with the first method - but I need it to save the file with its original name)
You can't save the file back to the same name while you're still reading from it, which means you'd have to read the whole 900MB into memory before you start writing. Not a good idea.
Try this:
Remove-Item log_stripped.log
Get-Content log.log -ReadCount 1000 |
foreach {$_ -notmatch 'ERROR1|ERROR2|ERROR3' | Add-Content log_stripped.log }
Remove-item log.log
Rename-Item log_stripped.log log.log
I know you said you want to save to the same filename, but if the reason you want that is that you want the log to be continuously updated, then you could do the following:
Get-Content -Wait log.log |
? {$_ -notmatch 'ERROR1|ERROR2|ERROR3' } |
Out-File log_stripped.log
Note the -Wait on the Get-Content.
log_stripped.log will be continuously updated as log.log is updated.