When I run a recursive Copy-Item from a folder that has sub folders to a new folder that contains the same sub folders as the original, it throws an error when the subfolders already exist.
How can I suppress this because it is a false negative and can make true failures harder to see?
Example:
Copy-Item "C:\realFolder\*" "C:\realFolder_new" -recurse
Copy-Item : Item with specified name C:\realFolder_new\subFolder already exists.
You could try capturing any errors that happen, and then decide whether you care about it or not:
Copy-Item "C:\realFolder\*" "C:\realFolder_new" -recurse -ErrorVariable capturedErrors -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
$capturedErrors | foreach-object { if ($_ -notmatch "already exists") { write-error $_ } }
If you add -Force to your command it will overwrite the existing files and you won't see the error.
-Recurse will replace all items within each folder and all subfolders.
Copy-Item "C:\realFolder\*" "C:\realFolder_new" -Recurse -Force
You can set the error handling behavior to ignore using:
Copy-Item "C:\realFolder\*" "C:\realFolder_new" -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
However this will also suppress errors you did want to know about!
Related
Could you help me again with a powershell script?
I want to check if multiple folders exist, if they exist then delete the complete folder.
Also provide information if the folder has been deleted or information if the folder does not exist.
I now use the script below for multiple files. (thanks to good help)
I want to use the same script for 1 or more folders.
For example, delete folder c:\test1\ and c:test2
Folders may be deleted, even if they still contain files.
$paths = "c:\test\1.txt", "c:\test\2.txt", "c:\test\3.txt"
foreach($filePath in $paths)
{
if (Test-Path $filePath) {
Remove-Item $filePath -verbose
} else {
Write-Host "Path doesn't exits"
}
}
I'm not super handy with powershell, hope you can help me with this again.
Thanks
Tom
To remove a directory (folder) that has content, you must use the -Recurse switch with Remove-Item - otherwise, an interactive confirmation prompt is presented.
A given path existing doesn't necessarily mean that it is a directory - it may be a file. To specifically test if a given path is a directory / file, use -PathType Container / -PathType Leaf with Test-Path.
While only strictly necessary when paths happen to contain [ characters, the robust way to pass literal paths is via the -LiteralPath parameter that file-processing cmdlets support - by contrast, the first positional argument typically binds to the -Path parameter (e.g., Test-Path foo is the same as Test-Path -Path foo), which interprets its argument(s) as wildcard expressions.
Applied to your use case (note that no attempt is made to distinguish files from directories):
# Input directory paths.
$paths = 'c:\test1', 'c:\test2', 'c:\test3'
foreach ($path in $paths) {
if (Test-Path -LiteralPath $path) {
Remove-Item -LiteralPath $path -Verbose -Recurse -WhatIf
} else {
"Path doesn't exist: $path"
}
}
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.
Another, more efficient option is to use Get-Item to get objects representing the file-system items, if they exist, and pipe them to Remove-Item:
$paths = 'c:\test1', 'c:\test2', 'c:\test3'
Get-Item -LiteralPath $paths -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable errs |
Remove-Item -Recurse -Verbose -WhatIf
if ($errs) {
"The following path(s) do not exist: $($errs.TargetObject)"
}
Note the use of -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue to silence errors resulting from nonexistent paths, and -ErrorVariable errs in order to collect these errors in self-chosen variable $errs.
The .TargetObject property of the [System.Management.Automation.ErrorRecord] instances collected in $errs then contains the path that triggered the error, resolved to a full path.
I have simple Sitecore8/PowerShell script where I delete image child item and publish parent item:
$child1 = Get-Item $child1Path
Remove-Item $child1 -Force -Permanently
Publish-Item -Item $parent1 -Recurse -PublishMode SingleItem -Language "en*"
No deletion and no errors while running.
How can I find out why it's not deleting ?
You can use the Remove-Item with the -Path parameter. Or use
$child1 | Remove-Item
Apparently you script don't throw an error but the remove is not working that way.
See the documentation https://doc.sitecorepowershell.com/working-with-items
I'm using the following command to copy a directory tree from one folder to another.
Copy-Item $SOURCE $DEST -Filter {PSIsContainer} -Recurse -Force -Verbose
The verbose option is correctly showing each folder that is copied. However, I would like to tell the Verbose option to only shows the first level of the subfolders that are copied. Hence the subfolders/subfolders/... etc wouldn't appear.
Is it possible?
Instead of using the -Verbose option, you could use the -PassThru option to process the successfully processed items via the pipeline. In the following example, I am assuming that $DEST is the existing directory in which the newly copied directory will appear. (You cannot call Get-Item on non-existant objects.)
$SOURCE = Get-Item "foo"
$DEST = Get-Item "bar"
Copy-Item $SOURCE $DEST -Filter {PSIsContainer} -Recurse -Force -PassThru | Where-Object {
# Get the parent object. The required member is different between
# files and directories, which makes this a bit more complex than it
# might have been.
if ($_.GetType().Name -eq "DirectoryInfo") {
$directory = $_.Parent
} else {
$directory = $_.Directory
}
# Select objects as required, in this case only allow through
# objects where the second level parent is the pre-existing target
# directory.
$directory.Parent.FullName -eq $DEST.FullName
}
Count the number of backslashes in the path and add logic to select first level only perhaps. Something like this perhaps?
$Dirs=get-childitem $Source -Recurse | ?{$_.PSIsContainer}
Foreach ($Dir in $Dirs){
$Level=([regex]::Match($Dir.FullName,"'b")).count
if ($Level -eq 1){Copy-Item $Dir $DEST -Force -Verbose}
else{Copy-Item $Dir $DEST -Force}}
*Edited to include looping and logic per requirements
I would suggest using robocopy instead of copy-item. Its /LEV:n switch sounds like it's exactly what you're looking for. Example (you'll need to test & tweak to meet your requirements):
robocopy $source $dest /LEV:2
robocopy has approximately 7 gazillion options you can specify to get some very useful and interesting behavior out of it.
I am trying delete all files within a folder but there is 1 folder called pictures which I would like to keep but don't know how to do that. I am using the following script , it deletes everything in a folder
if ($message -eq 'y')
{
get-childitem "C:\test" -recurse | % {
remove-item $_.FullName -recurse
}
}
One solution is to use something like:
Get-ChildItem -Path "c:\test" -Recurse | Where-Object { $_.FullName -cnotmatch "\\Pictures($|\\)" -and (Get-ChildItem $_.FullName -Include "Pictures" -Recurse).Length -eq 0 } | Remove-Item -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue;
I suspect there must be a way more elegant way to do this. Here's what this does: it enumerates all files in the C:\test folder recursively (Get-ChildItem), then it removes all items from the result list using Where-Object where the path contains the directory to be excluded (specified using regex syntax) or when the item in question has child items that contains the file or directory to be excluded. The resulting list is fed to Remove-Item for removal. The -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue switch is applied to prevent errors being logged with recursive removal.
Get-ChildItem $PSScriptRoot -Force| Where-Object {$_.Name -ne "Pictures"} | Remove-Item -Recurse
I just tried this, and it worked for me. If you want to change what is deleted just change the "Pictures". This uses $PSScriptRoot for the path, which is the execution path of the Powershell script. You can rename that to be the path of where you want to delete.
I have a program that copies folders and files recursively.
example:
Copy-Item -path "$folderA" -destination "$folderB" -recurse
Sometimes the files do not copy. Is there a way to "step inside the recursion" or a better way to do it, so I can enable some kind of error checking during the process rather than after wards. Possibly even do a Test-Path and prompt for a recopy?
You can. For example the following code snippet will actually copy and check each file for possible errors. You can also put your custom code at the beginning to check for some prerequisites:
get-childItem $source -filter *.* | foreach-object {
# here you can put your pre-copy tests...
copy-item $_.FullName -destination $target -errorAction SilentlyContinue -errorVariable errors
foreach($error in $errors)
{
if ($error.Exception -ne $null)
{
write-host -foregroundColor Red "Exception: $($error.Exception)"
}
write-host -foregroundColor Red "Error: An error occured during copy operation."
}
}