Richard Siddaway's Blog

I was recently left a comment of a post

http://richardspowershellblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/30/updating-access-data/

asking about the how to get the count of files in a folder

There are a number of solutions including dropping back to the FileSystem object from VBscript

If we want just a PowerShell option

function filecount {            
param (            
 [string]$path            
)            
 if (-not (Test-Path $path)){Throw "Path: $path not found"}            
             
 $count = 0            
 $count = Get-ChildItem -Path $path |             
          where {!$_.PSIsContainer} |             
          Measure-Object |            
          select -ExpandProperty count            
                      
 Get-Item -Path $path |             
 select PSDrive,             
 @{N="Parent"; E={($_.PSParentPath -split "FileSystem::")[1]}},            
 Name,            
 @{N="FileCount"; E={$count}}            
             
 Get-ChildItem -Path $path |             
 where {$_.PSIsContainer} |            
 foreach {            
   filecount $($_.Fullname)            
 }            
            
}             
            
filecount "c:\scripts"

Supply a path to the top level folder for the filecount function

It will test if the folder exists & complain if it doesn’t.

We can then count the files in the folder using PSISContainer to filter out any subfolders and measure-object to perform the count.

Get-item is used on the path and piped into select where we split out the parent path and add the file count (that count be done with add-member as well

Get-ChildItem is used on the path and only folders are passed. The path of each subfolder is passed to the filecount function. 

A function calling itself like this known as recursion

A question on the forum asked about setting creation date on folders after they have been copied to match the source folder.

I created a source folder with three folders and modified the creation dates

Set-ItemProperty -Path c:\testsource\folder1 -Name CreationTime -Value ((get-date).adddays(-90))
Set-ItemProperty -Path c:\testsource\folder2 -Name CreationTime -Value ((get-date).adddays(-127))
Set-ItemProperty -Path c:\testsource\folder3 -Name CreationTime -Value ((get-date).adddays(-192))

I then created a file

dir c:\scripts |out-file -FilePath test.txt

and copied it into each folder

The copy of the folders and their contents is achieved like this

Copy-Item -Path c:\testsource\* -Destination c:\testtarget -Force –Recurse

Our source looks like this

PS> Get-ChildItem -Path c:\testsource | where {$_.PSIsContainer} | ft  Fullname, CreationTime -a

FullName                             CreationTime
--------                                    ------------
C:\testsource\Folder1   13/11/2011 11:26:35
C:\testsource\Folder2   07/10/2011 11:27:12
C:\testsource\Folder3   03/08/2011 11:27:27

and the target looks like this

PS> Get-ChildItem -Path c:\testtarget | where {$_.PSIsContainer} | ft  Fullname, CreationTime -a

FullName                           CreationTime
--------                                  ------------
C:\testtarget\Folder1   11/02/2012 11:34:25
C:\testtarget\Folder2   11/02/2012 11:34:25
C:\testtarget\Folder3   11/02/2012 11:34:25

So our job is to change the creationtime property on the target folders

Get-ChildItem -Path c:\testsource -Recurse |             
where {$_.PSIsContainer} |            
foreach {            
 $newfolder = $_.Fullname -replace "Testsource", "Testtarget"            
            
 Set-ItemProperty -Path $newfolder -Name CreationTime -Value $($_.CreationTime)            
}

Just loop through the source folders – change the path to match the target and set the CreationTime

We can then test the results

PS> Get-ChildItem -Path c:\testtarget | where {$_.PSIsContainer} | ft  Fullname, CreationTime -a

FullName                           CreationTime

--------                                  ------------

C:\testtarget\Folder1   13/11/2011 11:26:35

C:\testtarget\Folder2   07/10/2011 11:27:12

C:\testtarget\Folder3   03/08/2011 11:27:27

Job done

A question in the forums wanted to get the date a folder was changed on their domain controllers. This is one way to do it

$folder = "Common Files"            
            
[System.DirectoryServices.ActiveDirectory.Domain]::GetCurrentDomain() |             
select -ExpandProperty DomainControllers |             
foreach {            
 $dc = $_.Name            
            
 if (Test-Path -Path "\\$dc\c$\Program Files (x86)\$folder") {            
  $data =  Get-Item "\\$dc\c$\Program Files (x86)\$folder" | select Fullname, LastWriteTime            
 }            
 else {            
  $data =  Get-Item "\\$dc\c$\Program Files\$folder" | select Fullname, LastWriteTime            
 }            
 $data | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Server -Value $dc -PassThru            
}

In this case the folder would only be in the 32 bit program files folder so see if “program files (x86)” exists – if so its 64 bit machine & we want that folder. if not we revert to “program files”

Final act is to add the computer name as a parameter – that could also be done as a calculated field in select

Following on from the previous post I was asked if the bit where we set the case on the file names and extension could be done in a select statement.

Simple answer is yes

Get-ChildItem |                        
where {-not $_.PSIsContainer} |                        
sort Fullname |                        
select @{N="FullName"; E={$($_.Fullname.ToUpper())}},                         
@{N="Extension"; E={$($_.Extension.ToLower())}},             
Length, LastWriteTime |            
Format-Table -Autosize

Calculated fields can be used in Format-Table and Select-Object cmdlets

I didn’t mention previously – N is short for Name and E is short for Expression above

A question was left asking about displaying a file listing with the full name in upper case and the extension in lower case. Its one line of PowerShell

Get-ChildItem |            
where {-not $_.PSIsContainer} |            
sort Fullname |            
Format-Table @{N="FullName"; E={$($_.Fullname.ToUpper())}},             
@{N="Extension"; E={$($_.Extension.ToLower())}}, Length, LastWriteTime -Autosize