CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
Ryan Bemrose
Ryan Bemrose

Reputation: 9266

ItemNotFoundException calling Remove-Item from pipeline on files outside the curent directory

Suppose I have the following files I'd like to remove from multiple directories.

PS d:\path> $files = gci -path . -Recurse -File

PS d:\path> $files
d:\path\foo.txt
d:\path\sub\bar.txt

I use foreach to call Remove-Item.

PS d:\path> $files | foreach { Remove-Item -Path $_ -WhatIf }
What if: Performing the operation "Remove File" on target "D:\path\foo.txt".
Remove-Item : Cannot find path 'D:\path\bar.txt' because it does not exist.
At line:1 char:19
+ $files | foreach { Remove-Item -Path $_ -WhatIf }
+                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (D:\path\bar.txt:String) [Remove-Item], ItemNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PathNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.RemoveItemCommand

It would seem that when passed a recursive list of files, Remove-Item always tries to remove a file from the current directory. It can remove d:\path\foo.txt just fine. But it throws an error trying to remove d:\path\bar.txt, because there is no such file. The file it should be deleting is located in d:\path\sub\bar.txt.

Note that the following code works fine, presumably because the Get-ChildItem is not recursive.

PS D:\path> del .\sub\bar.txt -WhatIf
What if: Performing the operation "Remove File" on target "D:\path\sub\bar.txt".

PS D:\path> gci .\sub\bar.txt | % { del $_ -WhatIf }
What if: Performing the operation "Remove File" on target "D:\path\sub\bar.txt".

Is this a bug in PowerShell, or am I not using it right? Is there a different prescribed way to delete files recursively, subject to pipeline filtering?

Other notes:

Upvotes: 4

Views: 2363

Answers (2)

Kiran Reddy
Kiran Reddy

Reputation: 2904

Instead of using foreach-object you can just use:

$files | Remove-Item  -WhatIf

$files returns objects of type : System.IO.FileSystemInfo

if you run :

help Remove-Item -Parameter path

you will see that the path parameter accepts an array of strings. $files[0].gettype() is not a string so some type conversion has to happen

Upvotes: 4

Mohammad Nadeem
Mohammad Nadeem

Reputation: 9392

$files | foreach { Remove-Item -Path $_.FullName -WhatIf }

Upvotes: 1

Related Questions