Get-ChildItem - Powershell command to find items in a specified location

The 'Get-ChildItem' cmdlet gets the items in one or more specified locations.

 It can be used to list the files and directories in a particular directory, or to list the registry keys and values in a registry hive.

How to use 'Get-ChildItem' to list the files in the current directory:

                    

Get-ChildItem

We can also specify a different directory to list the files and directories in that directory by using the -Path parameter: 

Get-ChildItem -Path D:\TestDir

To get the list of files with a particular extension, suppose .txt files, using Get-ChildItem Command, it can be used as:

 Get-ChildItem -Filter *.txt

We can find more about Get-ChildItem command and its usage by using:

                    Get-Help Get-ChildItem 

 Get-ChildItem [[-Filter] <System.String>] [-Attributes {Archive | Compressed | Device | Directory | Encrypted | Hidden | IntegrityStream | Normal | NoScrubData | NotContentIndexed |Offline | ReadOnly | ReparsePoint | SparseFile | System | Temporary}] [-Depth <System.UInt32>] [-Directory] [-Exclude <System.String[]>] [-File] [-Force] [-Hidden] [-Include     <System.String[]>] -LiteralPath <System.String[]> [-Name] [-ReadOnly] [-Recurse] [-System] [-UseTransaction] [<CommonParameters>]

    Get-ChildItem [[-Path] <System.String[]>] [[-Filter] <System.String>] [-Attributes {Archive | Compressed | Device | Directory | Encrypted | Hidden | IntegrityStream | Normal | NoScrubData | NotContentIndexed | Offline | ReadOnly | ReparsePoint | SparseFile | System | Temporary}] [-Depth <System.UInt32>] [-Directory] [-Exclude <System.String[]>] [-File] [-Force] [-Hidden] [-Include <System.String[]>] [-Name] [-ReadOnly] [-Recurse] [-System] [-UseTransaction] [<CommonParameters>]

PowerShell: Calculate the power using math function

 Here is a Powershell script 

• which gets two numbers from the command line 
• if there is no parameters, read them from the keyboard
• Calculate the power (first param on the power of the second )
• Display the output
  
• E.g. .\calcPower.ps1 2 3 => 8

 

PowerShell Script:

                    

#assign argument values
$num1 = $args[0]
$num2 = $args[1]

#check if the value entered is null
if ($num1 -like "$null"){
    #if null, ask for user input
    $num1 = read-host "Please enter the 1st number"
}

if ($num2 -like "$null"){
    $num2 = read-host "Please enter the 2nd number"
}

#calculate power using 'pow' function
$power = [Math]::Pow($num1,$num2)

#display output
Write-Output "$num1 to the power $Num2 is $power"

 

 

PowerShell Script: Copy Several files with same name to a folder without overriding with a differentiator

Powershell Script Description:

PowerShell script that will go through a directory called "C:\Deploy"

that has several subfolders with a file named "index.html in each of the subfolders and copy all the files named "index.html to a new folder called "C:\AllIndex" but not overwrite.

The files after copying would be named index001.html, index002.html, index003.html...

#source dir

$src = "C:\Deploy"

#destination dir 
$destn = "C:\AllIndex"

 

#Get the list of index.html
$index_html_list = (Get-ChildItem -Path "$src" -Name "index.html" -Recurse -Force)

 

# initialize counter
$counter = 1

 

#run in loop for all index.html 
foreach ($html in $index_html_list){
$counter = $counter.ToString('000')

#copy each index.html to new file in destination dir 
Copy-Item -Path "$src\$html" -Destination "$destn\index$counter.html"
#increment counter
$counter = [int]$counter + 1

}

 

PowerShell: Find the list of empty folders in a Directory

 

If you would like to find the empty folders in a directory you can use the below PowerShell script to find out.

Script:

$path = "D:\"   #change the value based on need

        #get the list of directories in the given path recursively  

         Get-ChildItem -Path $path -Directory -Recurse | ForEach-Object `

{ 

            #verify the count of files and folders in the directories are zero 

    if($_.GetFiles().Count -eq 0 -and $_.GetDirectories().Count -eq 0) 

        {

            "$($_.name)"            

        } 

} 

PowerShell: Check if the entered number is a valid Binary and print its decimal value

Powershell Script Description: 

Pass a number to a PowerShell script as an argument and validate whether it is a valid Binary. If the entered number is a valid binary, display its decimal value.

Script: isValidBinary.ps1

if (  $args[0] ){

    $num = $args[0]

    try {

        $value = [convert]::ToInt32(“$num”,2)

        Write-Host "'$num' is a valid Binary" -ForegroundColor Green

        Write-host "Decimal Value: $value"

        }

    catch{

        Write-Host  "'$num' is not a valid Binary" -ForegroundColor Red

    }

}

else{

    Write-Host "You must pass a number to the script"

}

Output: