Powershell script to locate specific file/file name? - powershell

Question

I wanted to write a small script that searched for an exact file name, not a string within a file name.
For instance if I search for 'hosts' using Explorer, I get multiple results by default. With the script I want ONLY the name I specify. I'm assuming that it's possible?
I had only really started the script and it's only for my personal use so it's not important, it's just bugging me. I have several drives so I started with 2 inputs, one to query drive letter and another to specify file name. I can search by extension, file size etc but can't seem to pin the search down to an exact name.
Any help would be appreciated!
EDIT : Thanks to all responses. Just to update. I added one of the answers to my tiny script and it works well. All three responses worked but I could only use one ultimately, no offence to the other two. Cheers. Just to clarify, 'npp' is an alias for Notepad++ to open the file once found.
$drv = read-host "Choose drive"
$fname = read-host "File name"
$req = dir -Path $drv -r | Where-Object { !$PsIsContainer -and [System.IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($_.Name) -eq $fname }
set-location $req.directory
npp $req

Answer 1

From a powershell prompt, use the gci cmdlet (alias for Get-ChildItem) and -filter option:
gci -recurse -filter "hosts"
This will return an exact match to filename "hosts".
SteveMustafa points out with current versions of powershell you can use the -File switch to give the following to recursively search for only files named "hosts" (and not directories or other miscellaneous file-system entities):
gci -recurse -filter "hosts" -File
The commands may print many red error messages like "Access to the path 'C:\Windows\Prefetch' is denied.".
If you want to avoid the error messages then set the -ErrorAction to be silent.
gci -recurse -filter "hosts" -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
An additional helper is that you can set the root to search from using -Path.
The resulting command to search explicitly search from, for example, the root of the C drive would be
gci -Recurse -Filter "hosts" -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -Path "C:\"

Answer 2

Assuming you have a Z: drive mapped:
Get-ChildItem -Path "Z:" -Recurse | Where-Object { !$PsIsContainer -and [System.IO.Path]::GetFileNameWithoutExtension($_.Name) -eq "hosts" }

Answer 3

I use this form for just this sort of thing:
gci . hosts -r | ? {!$_.PSIsContainer}
. maps to positional parameter Path and "hosts" maps to positional parameter Filter. I highly recommend using Filter over Include if the provider supports filtering (and the filesystem provider does). It is a good bit faster than Include.

Answer 4

I'm using this function based on #Murph answer.
It searches inside the current directory and lists the full path:
function findit
{
$filename = $args[0];
gci -recurse -filter "*${filename}*" -file -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue | foreach-object {
$place_path = $_.directory
echo "${place_path}\${_}"
}
}
Example usage: findit myfile

Answer 5

To search the whole computer:
gdr -PSProvider 'FileSystem' | %{ ls -r $_.root} 2>$null | where { $_.name -eq "httpd.exe" }

Answer 6

In findFileByFilename.ps1 I have:
# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/3428044/powershell-script-to-locate-specific-file-file-name
$filename = Read-Host 'What is the filename to find?'
gci . -recurse -filter $filename -file -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
# tested works from pwd recursively.
This works great for me. I understand it.
I put it in a folder on my PATH.
I invoke it with:
> findFileByFilename.ps1

Answer 7

To search the whole computer:
gdr -PSProvider 'FileSystem' | %{ ls -r $.root} 2>$null | where {
$.name -eq "httpd.exe" }
I am pretty sure this is a much less efficient command, for MANY reasons, but the simplest is your piping everything to your where-object command, when you could still use -filter "httpd.exe" and save a ton of cycles.
Also, on a lot of computers the get-psdrive is gonna grab shared drives, and I am pretty sure you wanted that to get a complete search. Most shares can be IMMENSE with regard to the sheer number of files and folders, so at the very least I would sort my drives by size, and add a check after each search to exit the loop if we locate the file. That is if you are looking for a single instance, if not the only way to save yourself the IMMENSE time sink of searching a 10TB share or two, is to comment the command and highly suggest any user who were to need to use it should limit their search as much as they can. For instance our User Profile share is 10TB, at least the one I am on is, and I can limit my search to the directory $sharedrive\users\myname and search my 116GB directory rather than the 10TB one. Too many unknowns with shares for this type of script, which is already super inefficient with regard to resources and speed.
If I was seriously considering using something like this, I would add a call to a 3rd party package and leverage a DB.