PowerShell – Working with Files and Folders
Creating Folders and Files:
We use the cmdlet New-Item to create a folder or a file. We need to specify the Item type (the FileSystem Windows PowerShell provider distinguishes between directories and files).
The following command creates a new folder in the present working directory.
PS C:\temp> New-Item folder1 -ItemType Directory Directory: C:\temp Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- d----- 1/7/2018 12:24 AM folder1
We can also create a folder or file directly by giving a path.
PS C:\temp> New-Item c:\temp\folder2 -ItemType Directory Directory: C:\temp Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- d----- 1/7/2018 12:28 AM folder2 PS C:\Users\Venu> New-Item c:\temp\folder2\textfile.txt -ItemType File Directory: C:\temp\folder2 Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a---- 1/7/2018 6:48 PM 0 textfile.txt
The above command will create a file textfile.txt in the given path C:\temp\folder2\
Listing all files and folders in a folder:
You can get all items directly within a folder by using Get-ChildItem. By default, Get-ChildItem does not display system files and hidden files. If you want to include those files, add an optional parameter Force. If you want to list files and folders of sub folders as well, add Recurse option.
Get-ChildItem
Get-ChildItem C:\temp\
Get-ChildItem C:\Windows\System32\ -Force -Recurse
Copying Files and Folders:
Copying is done with Copy-Item.
Copy-Item C:\temp\folder2\textfile.txt c:\temp\folder1\
If file is there already in the destination folder, you can use -Force option. This will replace the existing file.
Copy-Item C:\temp\folder2\textfile.txt c:\temp\folder1\ -Force
The following command will copy all content in the folder to new path.
Copy-Item C:\temp C:\temp2 -Recurse -Force
Removing All Files and Folders Within a Folder
You can remove contained items using Remove-Item. It will prompt if there is any content in the folder.
Remove-Item C:\temp2
Remove-Item C:\temp2 -Recurse -Force
Reading Text Files:
Get-Content is used to read the content of a file into an array.
Let is create a text file for testing.
PS C:\temp> New-Item test.txt -ItemType File Directory: C:\temp Mode LastWriteTime Length Name ---- ------------- ------ ---- -a---- 1/7/2018 7:19 PM 0 test.txt
Add some content to the file
PS C:\temp> Add-Content .\test.txt "This is first line" PS C:\temp> Add-Content .\test.txt "This is second line" PS C:\temp> Add-Content .\test.txt "third line" PS C:\temp> Add-Content .\test.txt "fourth line" PS C:\temp> Add-Content .\test.txt "fifth line"
Now read content of the file using Get-Content
PS C:\temp> Get-Content .\test.txt This is first line This is second line third line fourth line fifth line PS C:\temp>
We can also assign the output to a variable. Result will be stored as an array. If you want to display first line only, try the following:
PS C:\temp> $content = Get-Content .\test.txt PS C:\temp> $content[0] This is first line