I'm working on a powershell script erase certain files from a folder, and move the rest into predefined subfolders.
My structure looks like this
Main
(Contains a bunch of pdb and dll files)
-- _publish
--Website
(Contains a web.config, two other .config files and a global.asax file)
-- bin
(Contains a pdb and dll file)
-- JS
-- Pages
-- Resources
I want to remove all pdb, config and asax files from the entire file structure before I start moving them. To which I use:
$pdbfiles = Get-ChildItem "$executingScriptDirectory\*.pdb" -recurse
foreach ($file in $pdbfiles) {
Remove-Item $file
}
And so on for all filetypes I need removed. It works great except for a pdb file located in the bin folder of the website. And for the ASAX file in the website folder. For some reason they get ignored by the Get-ChildItem recurse search.
Is this caused by the depth of the items within the resursive structure? Or is it something else? How can I fix it, so it removes ALL files as specified.
EDIT: I have tried adding -force - But it changed nothing
ANSWER: The following worked:
$include = #("*.asax","*.pdb","*.config")
$removefiles = Get-ChildItem "$executingScriptDirectory\*" -recurse -force -include $include
foreach ($file in $removefiles) {
if ($file.Name -ne "Web.config") {
Remove-Item $file
}
}
Get-ChildItem -path <yourpath> -recurse -Include *.pdb
You can also use the pipe for remove:
Get-ChildItem -path <yourpath> -recurse -Include *.pdb | rm
Related
so trying to find a way to combine a couple of things the Stack Overflow crowd has helped me do in the past. So I know how to find folders with a specific name and move them where I want them to go:
$source_regex = [regex]::escape($sourceDir)
(gci $sourceDir -recurse | where {-not ($_.psiscontainer)} | select -expand fullname) -match "\\$search\\" |
foreach {
$file_dest = ($_ | split-path -parent) -replace $source_regex,$targetDir
if (-not (test-path $file_dest)){mkdir $file_dest}
move-item $_ -Destination $file_dest -force -verbose
}
And I also know how to find and delete files of a specific file extension within a preset directory:
Get-ChildItem $source -Include $searchfile -Recurse -Force | foreach{ "Removing file $($_.FullName)"; Remove-Item -force -recurse $_}
What I'm trying to do now is combine the two. Basically, I'm looking for a way to tell Powershell:
"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."
What I'm trying to do is create a script I can use to clean up an archive drive when and if space starts to get tight. The idea is that as I develop things, a lot of times I go through a ton of incremental non-final drafts (hence folder name "Draft Materials"), and I want to get rid of the exported products (the PDFs, the BMPs, the AVIs, the MOVs, atc.) and just leave the master files that created them (the INDDs, the PRPROJs, the AEPs, etc.) so I can reconstruct them down the line if I ever need to. I can tell the script what drive and folder to search (and I'd assign that to a variable since the backup location may change and I'd like to just change it once), but I need help with the rest.
I'm stuck because I'm not quite sure how to combine the two pieces of code that I have to get Powershell to do this.
If what you want is to
"Look for all folders named 'Draft Materials.' When you find a folder with that name, get its full path ($source), then run a command to delete files of a given file extension ($searchfile) from that folder."
then you could do something like:
$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From' # the starting point for the search
$searchFolder = 'Draft Materials' # the folder name to search for
$deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV' # an array of file patterns to delete
# get a list of all folders called 'Draft Materials'
Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -Directory -Filter $searchFolder -Recurse | ForEach-Object {
# inside each of these folders, get the files you want to delete and remove them
Get-ChildItem -Path $_.FullName -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese |
Remove-Item -WhatIf
}
Or use Get-ChildItem only once, having it search for files. Then test if their fullnames contain the folder called 'Draft Materials'
$rootPath = 'X:\Path\To\Start\Searching\From'
$searchFolder = 'Draft Materials'
$deleteThese = '*.PDF', '*.BMP', '*.AVI', '*.MOV'
# get a list of all files with extensions from the $deleteThese array
Get-ChildItem -Path $rootPath -File -Recurse -Include $deleteThese |
# if in their full path names the folder 'Draft Materials' is present, delete them
Where-Object { $_.FullName -match "\\$searchFolder\\" } |
Remove-Item -WhatIf
In both cases I have added safety switch -WhatIf so when you run this, nothing gets deleted and in the console is written what would happen.
If that info shows the correct files are being removed, take off (or comment out) -Whatif and run the code again.
foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem -Path $srcRoot -File -Include "*.pdf" -Force -Recurse {
Above is just a line out of my script that is moving files from one directory to another. Long story short.. My script is working and has been for months. However, today I came across where it didnt move two files that were named like the following.
Thisismyfile.pdf2.pdf
Thisisanotherfile.pdf2.pdf
Now like I said.. the script has been working fine until these files came about. Of course I told the users to make sure they name files correctly ect.. but I dont know why it still didnt move those files. It still contains "*.pdf" as an extenstion.. so what gives?
I suspect that files are not moved in scenario where you have file in folder A with the same name as in folder B. Moving files to the one destination folder will cause name collision with error like Move-Item : Cannot create a file when that file already exists.
If that is the case, please use one of snippets from this answer: Powershell Move-Item Rename If File Exists
I placed few .pdf files (named like a.pdf.pdf, b.pdf.pdf ...) in src directory, running snippet below moves those files to dst folder correctly.
$srcRoot = "C:\Users\$env:username\Desktop\src\"
foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem -Path $srcRoot -File -Include "*.pdf" -Force -Recurse)
{
Move-Item -Path $file -Destination "C:\Users\$env:username\Desktop\dst\"
}
Here is a section of code from a larger script. The goal is to recurse through a source directory, then copy all the files it finds into a destination directory, sorted into subdirectories by file extension. It works great the first time I run it. If I run it again, instead of overwriting existing files, it fails with this error on each file that already exists in the destination:
Copy-Item : Cannot overwrite the item with itself
I try, whenever possible, to write scripts that are idempotent but I havn't been able to figure this one out. I would prefer not to add a timestamp to the destination file's name; I'd hate to end up with thirty versions of the exact same file. Is there a way to do this without extra logic to check for a file's existance and delete it if it's already there?
## Parameters for source and destination directories.
$Source = "C:\Temp"
$Destination = "C:\Temp\Sorted"
# Build list of files to sort.
$Files = Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Recurse | Where-Object { !$_.PSIsContainer }
# Copy the files in the list to destination folder, sorted in subfolders by extension.
foreach ($File in $Files) {
$Extension = $File.Extension.Replace(".","")
$ExtDestDir = "$Destination\$Extension"
# Check to see if the folder exists, if not create it
$Exists = Test-Path $ExtDestDir
if (!$Exists) {
# Create the directory because it doesn't exist
New-Item -Path $ExtDestDir -ItemType "Directory" | Out-Null
}
# Copy the file
Write-Host "Copying $File to $ExtDestDir"
Copy-Item -Path $File.FullName -Destination $ExtDestDir -Force
}
$Source = "C:\Temp"
$Destination = "C:\Temp\Sorted"
You are trying to copy files from a source directory to a sub directory of that source directory. The first time it works because that directory is empty. The second time it doesn't because you are enumerating files of that sub directory too and thus attempt to copy files over themselves.
If you really need to copy the files into a sub directory of the source directory, you have to exclude the destination directory from enumeration like this:
$Files = Get-ChildItem -Path $Source -Directory |
Where-Object { $_.FullName -ne $Destination } |
Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse
Using a second Get-ChildItem call at the beginning, which only enumerates first-level directories, is much faster than filtering the output of the Get-ChildItem -Recurse call, which would needlessly process each file of the destination directory.
I have many folders, some of which have subfolders. I want to find and copy to special directory all files of one type, for example .txt, from them. I use this script and it works, but it copies all folders on the way to my file too. How can I avoid this? I thought about deleting all empty folders after copying, but I'm sure that the more right way exists.
$folders = [IO.Directory]::GetDirectories("S:\other","*","AllDirectories")
Foreach ($dir in $folders) {
Copy-Item -Path $dir -Filter *.txt -Recurse -Destination 'D:\FinishFolder'
}
Use Get-ChildItem to discover the files, then copy them 1 by 1:
Get-ChildItem S:\other -Filter *.txt -Recurse |Copy-Item -Destination 'D:\FinishFolder'
I am trying to clear directories but I want to leave folders that have csv files inside. I tried to use this command:
Remove-Item -Path "$Using:MyPath" -Exclude "*.csv", "*.end" -Recurse -Force -ErrorAction Stop
But it will not work with the structure below. If a csv file is inside
Sub2Folder Remove-Item will remove SubFolder with all it's contents and I will lose my csv files. Is there a way to avoid this situation and not to delete folders if any of it's subfolders has a csv file inside?
MainFolder
SubFolder
Sub2Folder
somefile.csv
I made a small script which does exaclty this. Ask me if you need more help ;)
$subfolders = Get-Childitem "$Using:MyPath\*" -Directory
#Get all folders
#foreach folder in the folders
foreach ($subfolder in $subfolders) {
if (!(Get-Childitem $subfolder.FullName -Recurse -Filter "*.csv")){ #If subfolder empty
Remove-Item $subfolder.FullName -Force -Recurse #Remove this folder
}
}
Edit: Thanks to Grzegorz Ochlik I did some changes to the script. (-Directory switch and no measure-object
If I helped you, please mark this post as the answer :D
This is working for me:
Get-ChildItem "$Using:MyPath" -Exclude "*.csv","*.end" -Recurse -File | Foreach {Remove-Item $_.Fullname}
This will list All files except the wildcarded files and remove them.