Delete parent directory if file is present with appropriate timestamp - powershell

Question

Using PowerShell I'd like to search a directory tree which will have a subset of folders. If a file called NOW is present within those folders and is 3 days old I'd like to delete the parent directory.
I think I have the search syntax right, then piping to a foreach loop but I can't figure out how to remove the parent directory.
Get-ChildItem -Path C:\tools\test1 -Filter NOW -Recurse |
foreach ($_) ???
Any help would be much appreciated, thanks

Answer 1

Get-ChildItem returns System.IO.FileInfo objects for files. One of the properties is Directory. So what you would be wanting to remove the directory. The Directory is still and object and we need the full path from it.
Remove-Item $_.Directory.FullName -Force -Recurse
The above would remove the folder, where NOW resides, and its contents. But you have another condition for age. Couple of ways to do this but one would be to use New-TimeSpan to compare the creation time to Now. Using the Days property of the TimeSPam
(New-TimeSpan -start $_.CreationTime -end ([datetime]::Now)).Days -gt 3
Putting that together with what you already have. -File will ensure we dont get folder matches.
$refdate = (Get-Date).Date.AddDays(-3)
Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\tools\test1" -Filter "NOW" -Recurse -File |
Where-Object{$_.CreationTime -gt $refdate} |
ForEach-Object{ Remove-Item $_.Directory.FullName -Force -Recurse -WhatIf }
The -WhatIf will help you identify the folders this process would attempt to remove. If you dont have at least PowerShell version 3 you could do this.
$refdate = (Get-Date).Date.AddDays(-3)
Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\tools\test1" -Filter "NOW" -Recurse |
Where-Object{(!$_.PSIsContainer) -and ($_.CreationTime -gt $refdate)} |
ForEach-Object{ Remove-Item $_.Directory.FullName -Force -Recurse -WhatIf }