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marco69's avatar
marco69
Copper Contributor
Dec 07, 2022
Solved

.ps1 script: how to loop in a range of dates

Hi all, I have to copy the content of the folders:   C:\mypath\YYYYDDMM\myfolder1   into one folder destination.   And: YYYYMMDD is from 20140101 to 20211231   I'm struggling to find a way t...
Windows PowerShell
  • Harm_Veenstra's avatar
    Harm_Veenstra
    Dec 12, 2022

    Just tested this script, this works:

    foreach ($folder in Get-ChildItem -Path c:\mypath -Directory | Sort-Object Name) {
    try {
        Test-Path "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1" -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null
        Copy-Item "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1" -Recurse -Destination C:\destpath\myfolder1 -Force:$true -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop
        Write-Host ("Processing {0}" -f $folder.fullname) -ForegroundColor Green
    }
    catch {
        Write-Warning ("Folder myfolder1 not found in {0} or not enough permissions" -f $folder.FullName)
    }
}

     

    Source directory:


    Destination directory:

    It will check permissions and copy if it has permissions and will overwrite if the file is already present, it will show a warning if the folder1 folder was not found in a directory.

     

    You can test it for yourself with a test directory structure 🙂 

     

Harm_Veenstra's avatar
Harm_Veenstra
MVP
Dec 12, 2022
Let us know if it works out for you, please mark my answer as best response to mark it as solved if it did 🙂
marco69's avatar
marco69
Copper Contributor
Dec 12, 2022
I forgot one important point: I have to overwrite only if the file is newer...
how can I modify the script to do that?
thank you and excuse me for this missing
  • Harm_Veenstra's avatar
    Harm_Veenstra
    MVP
    Dec 12, 2022

    marco69 Changed it to also check for that:

     

     

    $sourcepath = 'C:\MyPath'
$destinationpath = 'C:\DestPath\myfolder1'
foreach ($folder in Get-ChildItem -Path $sourcepath -Directory | Sort-Object Name) {
    try {
        Test-Path "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1" -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null
        foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem -Path "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1" -File) {
            if (Test-Path -Path "$($destinationpath)\$($file.name)") {
                $destinationfile = Get-ChildItem -Path "$($destinationpath)\$($file.Name)"
                if ($file.LastWriteTime -gt $destinationfile.LastWriteTime) {
                    Copy-Item "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1\$($file.Name)" -Destination $destinationpath -Force:$true -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop
                    Write-Host ("Processing {0} in {1} and overwriting old version" -f $file.name, $folder.fullname) -ForegroundColor Green
                }
                else {
                    Write-Host ("File {0} from {1} already present in {2}, no change needed" -f $file.Name, $folder.Name, $destinationpath) -ForegroundColor Green
                }
            }
            else {
                Copy-Item "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1\$($file.name)" -Destination $destinationpath -ErrorAction Stop
                Write-Host ("Copying new file {0} from {1} to {2}" -f $file.name, $folder.fullname, $destinationpath) -ForegroundColor Green
            }   
        }
    }
    catch {
        Write-Warning ("Folder myfolder1 not found in {0} or not enough permissions" -f $folder.FullName)
    }
}

     

     

    But... Are there multiple directories in c:\mypath\xxxxx\myfolder1? This script copies files from one directory to another, is that enough?

    • marco69's avatar
      marco69
      Copper Contributor
      Dec 13, 2022

      Hi Harm_Veenstra,

      I have to copy myfolder1 to destination, so this is ok.

       

      I have a weird behavior when I run the script, it gets me an error not founding the files under myfolder1, but some of those files exist...

      When I? wun theprevious version of the script it works very fine(simply it didnt consider the age of the files but it worked very well).

       

      This is the error:

       

      Get-ChildItem : Cannot find path 'C:\MyPath\20210618\a\b\c\myfolder1' because it does not exist.
At C:\scripts\myscript.ps1:7 char:27
+ ... h ($file in Get-ChildItem -Path "$($folder.fullname)\$myfolder1" -Fil ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (C:\MyPath\20210618\a\b\c\myfolder1:String) [Get-ChildItem], ItemNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand

       

      this is the line where the error refers:

       

       foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem -Path "$($folder.fullname)\$myfolder1" -File) {

       

      • Harm_Veenstra's avatar
        Harm_Veenstra
        MVP
        Dec 13, 2022

        marco69 I fixed it 🙂 It wasn't doing a Recurse in subdirectories if any and did not pass that along correctly, the script is now like this:

         

        $sourcepath = 'C:\MyPath'
$destinationpath = 'C:\DestPath\myfolder1'
foreach ($folder in Get-ChildItem -Path $sourcepath -Directory -Recurse | Sort-Object Name) {
    try {
        Test-Path "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1" -ErrorAction Stop | Out-Null
        foreach ($file in Get-ChildItem -Path "$($folder.fullname)\myfolder1" -Recurse -File) {
            if (Test-Path -Path "$($destinationpath)\$($file.name)") {
                $destinationfile = Get-ChildItem -Path "$($destinationpath)\$($file.Name)"
                if ($file.LastWriteTime -gt $destinationfile.LastWriteTime) {
                    Copy-Item $file.FullName -Destination $destinationpath -Force:$true -Confirm:$false -ErrorAction Stop
                    Write-Host ("Processing {0} in {1} and overwriting old version" -f $file.name, $folder.fullname) -ForegroundColor Green
                }
                else {
                    Write-Host ("File {0} from {1} already present in {2}, no change needed" -f $file.Name, $folder.Name, $destinationpath) -ForegroundColor Green
                }
            }
            else {
                Copy-Item $file.FullName -Destination $destinationpath -ErrorAction Stop
                Write-Host ("Copying new file {0} from {1} to {2}" -f $file.name, $folder.fullname, $destinationpath) -ForegroundColor Green
            }   
        }
    }
    catch {
        Write-Warning ("Folder myfolder1 not found in {0} or not enough permissions" -f $folder.FullName)
    }
}

         

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