In a script that runs in the morning, I need to copy files from one server to another, and I plan to copy larger files first, and did so:
Get-ChildItem | sort -property Length -Descending | Copy-Item $LOCAL_BKP_TEMP\* -Destination $LOCAL_BKP_FINAL -PassThru
Gives the following error:
Copy-Item : The input object cannot be bound to any parameters for the command either because the command does not take pipeline input or the input and its properties do not match any of the parameters that take pipeline input.
What should I do to make it work?
this should work:
Get-ChildItem | sort -property Length -Descending | Select -ExpandProperty FullName | Copy-Item -Destination $LOCAL_BKP_FINAL
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'm trying to generate a report for all WIM files in my MDT Deployment Share. Basically, I think need to do a ForEach loop on all the WIM files found. I have what I think should work but, obviously, it doesn't. How far off am I?
$WimPath = "G:\DeploymentShare\Operating Systems"
Get-ChildItem -Path $WimPath -Filter *.wim -Recurse -File | Select-Object -ExpandProperty VersionInfo | Select-Object FileName | ForEach-Object { Get-WindowsImage -ImagePath $_ }
The error I'm seeing is nagging about the Parameter being incorrect for the Get-WindowsImage command.
Get-WindowsImage : The parameter is incorrect.
At line:3 char:147
+ ... t-Object FileName | ForEach-Object { Get-WindowsImage -ImagePath $_ }
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm thinking my Select-Object isn't working like I think it should or I'm not using the pipeline correctly in my Get-WindowsImage command.
I'm a PowerShell noob and don't fully understand this, but I think what is going on can be explained by first focusing on this part of the command:
Get-ChildItem -Path $WimPath -Filter *.wim -Recurse -File | Select-Object -ExpandProperty VersionInfo | Select-Object FileName
To get this far, we first get all the *.wim files in your path, we expand the VersionInfo property, and then select the FileName. In the console, that will show you results like this:
FileName
--------
[files here]
The trick is in understanding what PowerShell is telling you with this output. The fact you see a FileName header means the pipeline has a stream of Objects with one property named FileName. Then we send that stream of Objects to ForEach-Object and look at the $_ special variable.
Hopefully it is clearer now what is going on. Get-WindowsImage -ImagePath $_ wants to see a string value holding the path of a *.wim file. But we sent it an object with one property.
You can fix this a few ways... adding ExpandProperty to the second Select-Object would probably do it. But really there's no reason for two Select-Objects in there at all. I think you could just do this:
Get-ChildItem -Path $WimPath -Filter *.wim -Recurse -File | Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName | ForEach-Object { Get-WindowsImage -ImagePath $_ }
And the trick here is the string representation you see in the shell from Get-ChildItem doesn't necessarily show every property in the object. There wouldn't be space. The FileName was always there, and you can see it by checking the Get-Member cmdlet, like so:
Get-ChildItem -Path $WimPath -Filter *.wim -Recurse -File | Get-Member
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 would like to retrieve all (and only) second level directory names of my disk. For example, C:\folder1\folder2 and C:\folder1\folder3, I need to retrieve only folder2 and folder3.
I write this and the PS displays all the directory names:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse | ?{ $_.PSIsContainer} | Select-Object Name
I found this help, and I modify the previous command in this way:
Get-ChildItem -Recurse | `Where-Object {($_.directory -match '^*\\\S*$')} ` | ForEach-Object {?{ $_.PSIsContainer} | Select-Object Name }
but when I use it the PS doesn't display anything.
I can't understand why, someone can help me? Thank you!
Only files appear to have a .directory property, directories do not, so you will never get something which passes your (.directory matches a pattern) filter and also passes your (PSIsContainer) filter.
Except that your PSIsContainer filter doesn't work:
| ForEach-Object {?{ $_.PSIsContainer} | Select-Object Name }
this doesn't make sense; you can only filter the pipeline using ? with cmdlet | ? {}, you cannot filter at the start of a loop scriptblock with no input and get anything useful. This is running where-object {} over and over in a loop, - and that has no output.
Using -Recurse will be very slow, as you go into every single directory all the way to the end, and make [fileinfo] objects for all the files as well.
Apart from Matt's wildcard answer, assuming PS v3 or above, you could list all the directories in the root, and then all the directories inside those, and stop there:
Get-ChildItem c:\ -Directory | Get-ChildItem -Directory | Select -ExpandProperty Name
or
gci c:\ -Dir | ForEach { (gci $_ -Dir).Name }
You should just be able to use some fun wildcards to get what you want here.
Get-ChildItem \*\*\ | Where-Object{$_.PSIsContainer}
Or if you have at least PowerShell 3.0 this would be faster
Get-ChildItem \*\*\ -Directory
Then if you wanted just the names tack on | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name
Here with full path, network compatible:
(Get-ChildItem "\\folder1\" -Dir).fullname | ForEach {(Get-ChildItem $_ -Dir).name}
Want it stored in an array?
$subfolders = (Get-ChildItem "\\folder1\" -Dir).fullname | ForEach {(Get-ChildItem $_ -Dir).name}
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