Forum Discussion
Parsing a file name and comparing a string to file creation date
Yes. Now the comparison is correct.
The only remaining issue is that I need to do the date comparison for every event*.pqd file, not just the most recent one in each folder. I'm not sure how to move the comparison to the right location in the code to get that result.
To compare the date for every event*.pqd file in each folder, you can modify the existing foreach loop to loop through all the files instead of just the most recent file in each folder. Here's an updated version of the code with the necessary changes:
$dirs = Get-ChildItem "\\fileshare\level1\level2\level3\parentdirectory" -Directory
$csvLog = "\\fileshare\toplevel\myprofile\myfolders\Documents\PowerShellOutput\Ion Future Events.csv"
foreach ($dir in $dirs) {
$folder = $dir.Name
$directory = $dir.FullName
echo "Directory" $directory
$files = Get-ChildItem $directory -Filter "event*.pqd" -Recurse
$filesCount = $files.Count
foreach ($file in $files) {
$date_str = $file.Name.Substring(6, 8)
echo "Date_str" $date_str
$date_obj = [datetime]::ParseExact($date_str, "yyyyMMdd", $null)
echo "Date Obj" $date_obj
$creation_date = $file.CreationTime.Date
echo "Creation Date" $creation_date
if ($date_obj -gt $creation_date) {
Write-Output "File $($file.Name) in folder $folder has date in the future."
} else {
$object = New-Object -TypeName psobject
$object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Site" -Value $folder
$object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "File Name" -Value $file.Name
$object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "File Size" -Value $file.Length
$object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Date Time" -Value $file.LastWriteTime
$object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "File Count" -Value $filesCount
$object | Export-Csv $csvLog -Encoding ASCII -Append -NoTypeInformation
}
}
}
This code uses a nested foreach loop to loop through all the event*.pqd files in each folder. For each file, it extracts the date from the file name, converts it to a datetime object, and compares it to the file creation date. If the date in the file name is in the future, it writes a message to the console. Otherwise, it creates a new psobject with the relevant file information and exports it to the CSV file. the Export-Csv cmdlet is inside the inner loop, so it exports data for each file separately.
- This is getting really close to what I need, but there are a couple remaining issues.
1. I only need output for the files where the datetime object is greater than the creation date, so I removed some of the NoteProperty definitions and moved the export inside the if statement. I also tried to create a new NoteProperty -Name "Has a date greater than creation date" -$creation_date, but as you can see from the sample output it did not get added to the output file.
2. The second issue is that with the results so far, I have discovered that there are many valid files where the creation date is one day greater than the date in the file name, but it should never be more than one day greater. How can I change the comparison to effectively be if($date_obj -gt $creation_date+1)?
Here's my modified code and sample output.
Modified code:
$dirs = Get-ChildItem "\\fileshare\level1\level2\level3\parentdirectory" -Directory
$csvLog = "\\fileshare\toplevel\myprofile\myfolders\Documents\PowerShellOutput\Ion Future Events.csv"
foreach ($dir in $dirs) {
$folder = $dir.Name
$directory = $dir.FullName
# echo "Directory" $directory
$files = Get-ChildItem $directory -Filter "event*.pqd" -Recurse
$filesCount = $files.Count
foreach ($file in $files) {
$date_str = $file.Name.Substring(6, 😎
# echo "Date_str" $date_str
$date_obj = [datetime]::ParseExact($date_str, "yyyyMMdd", $null)
# echo "Date Obj" $date_obj
$creation_date = $file.CreationTime.Date
# echo "Creation Date" $creation_date
if ($date_obj -gt $creation_date) {
$object = New-Object -TypeName psobject
# $object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name Write-Output "File $($file.Name) in folder $folder has date in the future."
$object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Site" -Value $folder
$object | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "File Name" -Value $file.Name
$onject | Add-Member -MemberType NoteProperty -Name "Has a date greater than creation date" -$creation_date
$object | Export-Csv $csvLog -Encoding ASCII -Append -NoTypeInformation
} else {
}
}
}
Sample output:
"Site","File Name"
"SiteA","event-20221110T0324065380000.pqd"
"SiteA","event-20221110T0323011310000.pqd"
"SiteB","event-20220904T0217282030000.pqd"
"Site1","event-20220904T0217268210000.pqd"
"Site2","event-20220705T0056043380000.pqd"
"Site2","event-20220707T0031091680000.pqd"
"Site3","event-20220707T0031094020000.pqd"Here's a version with a little bit of flexibility insofar as:
- It doesn't care what the prefix is, so long as the filename format adheres to:
somePrefix-timestamp.pqd - It'll silently exclude any files where the timestamp component isn't parsable.
It's also more efficient over larger file repositories as it's not storing the file system structure in a local variable prior to doing the work.
I went with using the full path to the file in the output but you can change that to your liking.
$LogFile = ".\SomeLogFile.log"; $Root = "D:\Data"; $FilenameTimestamp = [datetime]::MinValue; Remove-Item -Path $LogFile -ErrorAction:SilentlyContinue; Get-ChildItem -Directory -Path $Root | ForEach-Object { $Directory = $_; Get-ChildItem -File -Recurse -Path ($_.FullName) -Filter "event-*.pqd" | ForEach-Object { if ((($NameParts = $_.Name.Split(@("-", "."))).Count -eq 3) -and ([datetime]::TryParseExact($NameParts[1].Substring(0, 8), "yyyyMMdd", $null, [System.Globalization.DateTimeStyles]::None, [ref] $FilenameTimestamp)) -and ($FilenameTimestamp.Date -gt $_.CreationTime.Date)) { [PSCustomObject] @{ Site = $Directory.Name; Path = $_.FullName; } } } } | Export-Csv -Path $LogFile -NoTypeInformation;Sample output from the log file:
"Site","Path"
"Temp","D:\Data\Temp\event-20230630T1420405650000.pqd"Cheers,
Lain
- It doesn't care what the prefix is, so long as the filename format adheres to:
