Forum Discussion
Problem with CopyItem cmdlet
Hi
I use PowerShell 7.x on Windows 11 Update.
I should copy all the txt files from the Test1 directory to the Test2 directory.
I tried writing
Copy-Item -Path .\Test1\ -Filter *.txt -Destination .\Test2\
but, in the destination directory, the source directory is created instead of copying the txt files. How come?
Thanks
Bye
The source path requires a wildcard at the end as shown below. Without this wildcard, the command will copy the directory object only, not the child content.
Copy-Item -Path .\Test1\* -Filter *.txt -Destination .\Test2\Cheers,
Lain
The source path requires a wildcard at the end as shown below. Without this wildcard, the command will copy the directory object only, not the child content.
Copy-Item -Path .\Test1\* -Filter *.txt -Destination .\Test2\Cheers,
Lain
I put some txt files in the working directory and created two subdirectories Test1 and Test2.
Afterwards, I wrote
Copy-Item -path .\* -Filter *.txt -Destination .\Test?\but it gives me error.
Instead, if I write the two commands ,
Copy-Item -path .\* -Filter *.txt -Destination .\Test1\ Copy-Item -path .\* -Filter *.txt -Destination .\Test2\the txt files are copied to both directories.
So, why does the wildcard not work?
Thanks
Bye
If you take a look at the commandlet reference below, you'll notice that that the "-Path" parameter states you can use wildcards while the "-Destination" parameter does not.
You'll also notice that "-Path" is a string array (shown as "string[]") where "-Destination" is only a single-valued string.
So, in terms of what these combinations allow and don't allow:
- Path accepts multiple source strings which can include wildcards;
- Destination only accepts a single destination string and no wildcards.
Reference:
If you want to copy a given set of files to multiple destinations then you will have to do exactly what you said, which is use multiple Copy-Item statements.
Cheers,
Lain
