ListFoldersAndModifiedDates.vbs<\/B> script is seen here:<\/P>Set objFSO = CreateObject(“Scripting.FileSystemObject”)\nSet objFolder = objFSO.GetFolder(“C:\\”)\nSet colFOlders = objFolder.SubFolders\nFor Each subFolder In colFOlders\n WScript.Echo subFolder.Name, subFolder.DateLastModified\nNext\n<\/PRE>\nIn Windows PowerShell we can get a collection of files and folders by using the Get-ChildItem<\/B> cmdlet. When we use the Get-ChildItem<\/B> cmdlet without supplying any values for the parameters, it returns a list of all the files and folders in the root directory:<\/P>![\"Image](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/hsg\/2009\/april\/hey0423\/hsg-04-23-09-02.jpg\")
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To return a listing of only directories, you have to determine a way to separate the directories from the files that are returned by the default use of the Get-ChildItem<\/B> cmdlet. There are actually several ways to do this, but they all involve pipelining the results of the Get-ChildItem<\/B> cmdlet to the Where-Object<\/B> cmdlet. Most of the time you can examine the column headings in the display results to find a property that you can use with the Where-Object<\/B> cmdlet to create a filter for your command. The default column headings used with the Get-ChildItem<\/B> cmdlet are listed here: Mode<\/B>, LastWriteTime<\/B>, Length<\/B>, and Name<\/B>. Of the four, the Mode<\/B> column will be of the most use because it has a “d” in the first position if the item is a directory. You use the Get-ChildItem<\/B> cmdlet to retrieve the file and folder objects from the root drive. Then you pipeline the objects to the Where-Object<\/B> cmdlet. Inside the script-block for the Where-Object<\/B> cmdlet, you use the $_<\/B> automatic variable to examine each object as it comes across the pipeline. The property that you are interested in is the mode<\/B> property. You use the \u2013like<\/B> operator to perform a wildcard match of any value that begins with the letter “d” and is followed by any other value. The command to list directories off the root drive is seen here:<\/P>PS C:\\> Get-ChildItem | Where-Object { $_.mode -like ‘d*’ }<\/PRE>\nThe results of the list directory<\/B> command are seen here:<\/P>![\"Image](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/hsg\/2009\/april\/hey0423\/hsg-04-23-09-03.jpg\")
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If you want to exactly replicate the output from the ListFoldersAndModifiedDates.vbs<\/B> script, you have to pass the results further down the pipeline so that you can reduce the information that is returned. There are two methods that you can use to reduce the information. The first method is to use the Select-Object<\/B> cmdlet to choose only the Name<\/B> and the LastWriteTime<\/B> properties. When you use the Select-Object<\/B> cmdlet to select certain properties, the object that is returned is a custom object that contains only the properties that you select and the methods that are common to all Windows PowerShell objects. The members of the newly created custom object are shown :<\/P> TypeName: System.Management.Automation.PSCustomObject<\/p>\nName MemberType Definition\n—- ———- ———-\nEquals Method System.Boolean Equals(Object obj)\nGetHashCode Method System.Int32 GetHashCode()\nGetType Method System.Type GetType()\nToString Method System.String ToString()\nLastWriteTime NoteProperty System.DateTime LastWriteTime=8\/17\/2008 1:23:10 PM\nName NoteProperty System.String Name=19287a2cfb60a3bbcca7\n<\/PRE>\n
It is important to understand the object that is returned by the query so that you can perform additional processing on the object, if you want to do so. The Get-ChildItem<\/B> command that lists the name and last write time of all the directories off the root drive is shown here. This command is a single command that is broken at the pipeline character for readability:<\/P>PS C:\\> Get-ChildItem | Where-Object { $_.mode -like ‘d*’ } | \nSelect-Object -Property Name, LastWriteTime\n<\/PRE>\nThe Get-ChildItem<\/B> command are shown here:<\/P>![\"Image](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/hsg\/2009\/april\/hey0423\/hsg-04-23-09-04.jpg\")
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You can reduce the typing without sacrificing any of the readability of the command by using dir<\/B> as the alias for Get-ChildItem<\/B>, where<\/B> as the alias for Where-Object<\/B>, and select<\/B> as the alias for Select-Object<\/B>. You can also omit the \u2013property<\/B> parameter because it is the default parameter for the Select-Object<\/B> cmdlet. The revised command is shown here:<\/P>PS C:\\> dir | where { $_.mode -like ‘d*’} | select name, lastwritetime<\/PRE>\nAnother way to produce a listing of the name and the last write time of each directory in the root directory is to send the output to the Format-Table<\/B> cmdlet, as illustrated here:<\/P>PS C:\\> Get-ChildItem | Where-Object { $_.mode -like ‘d*’ } | Format-Table -Prop\nerty Name, LastWriteTime\n<\/PRE>\nThe output produced by using the Format-Table<\/B> cmdlet is almost the same as the output produced by using the Select-Object<\/B> cmdlet:<\/P>![\"Image](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/hsg\/2009\/april\/hey0423\/hsg-04-23-09-05.jpg\")
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The problem with using Format-Table<\/B> to format your output is that if you have to do anything else to the data, you are left with a series of five different format objects that are basically useless for additional data manipulation. Depending on what you are trying to achieve, even the custom Windows PowerShell<\/B> object that is created by the Select-Object<\/B> cmdlet will cause you problems. As a best practice you should always perform all data manipulation before sending your object to an output cmdlet. <\/P>\n
At this point, in your pipeline you have one last thing that you can easily do: You can send the output to a text file. The easiest way to do this is to use the >><\/B> redirection operator as shown here (once again we have broken the single command at the pipeline character for readability):<\/P>PS C:\\> Get-ChildItem | Where-Object { $_.mode -like ‘d*’ } | \nFormat-Table -Property Name, LastWriteTime >> c:\\fso\\directoryFile.txt\n<\/PRE>\nThe text file that is produced by the redirection operator maintains the format that is displayed on the console:<\/P>![\"Image](\"http:\/\/img.microsoft.com\/library\/media\/1033\/technet\/images\/scriptcenter\/qanda\/hsg\/2009\/april\/hey0423\/hsg-04-23-09-06.jpg\")
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Today, we have looked at using Windows PowerShell to simplify working with directories, folders, and files. With the redirection operator, it is easy to write the results of the command to a text file. I hope that you have enjoyed this look at the basics of Windows PowerShell this week. Join us tomorrow for Quick-Hits Friday as we open up the mailbag and see how many questions we can answer in just a few sentences. Until tomorrow, keep cool.<\/P>\n
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Ed Wilson and Craig Liebendorfer, Scripting Guys<\/B><\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! This may not sound too exciting, but I do a lot of work with files and folders. I constantly have to create folders and files, move files, and move folders. This was easy to do by using VBScript, but nevertheless it always required at least six lines of code to do anything. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38,11,51,3,4,12,45],"class_list":["post-53903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-files","tag-folders","tag-getting-started","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-storage","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
Hey, Scripting Guy! This may not sound too exciting, but I do a lot of work with files and folders. I constantly have to create folders and files, move files, and move folders. This was easy to do by using VBScript, but nevertheless it always required at least six lines of code to do anything. […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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