CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
pwerhouse
pwerhouse

Reputation: 33

How to exclude certain folders in a recursive search

I have a script that will recursively search through a network path and pull the filenames. However the first 5 folders need to be excluded from the search because, well, it's deprecated and they haven't removed them yet (I don't have access to remove the folders).

What I need to do is exclude some folders called: - BOOT MEDIA, 1_Do_not_use, 1_lync, and a couple more.

How can I recursively search the directory and exclude the correct folders from the search?

What I have so far:

param(
  [string]$gather = "PACKAGE"
)

function say($info){ Write-Host $info }

function searchDir($path = "<removed for security>") 
{ 
    foreach ($item in Get-ChildItem $path)
    {

        $package = Test-Path $item.FullName -PathType Container

        if ($package) 
        {
            $item 
            searchDir $item.FullName
        } 
        else 
        { 
            $item
        }
    } 
}

Image of the directory:

Directory

Image to display the output given from answer:

output

Upvotes: 0

Views: 556

Answers (1)

woxxom
woxxom

Reputation: 73606

Excluding deprecated folders that may exist anywhere recursively, PS2.0+:

function searchDir($path = "<removed for security>") 
{
    $deprecated = '- BOOT MEDIA', '1_Do_not_use', '1_lync'
    Get-ChildItem $path | ForEach {
        if ($_ -is [IO.FileInfo]) {
            $_
        } elseif ($deprecated -notcontains $_.Name) {
            $_
            searchDir $_.FullName
        }
    }
}

And a much much faster .NET4+ version that outputs only the full file names, not objects.
The directories have \ at the end so that it's easy to discern.

function searchDir($path = "<removed for security>") 
{
    $deprecated = '- BOOT MEDIA', '1_Do_not_use', '1_lync', 'default'
    [IO.Directory]::EnumerateFiles($path)
    [IO.Directory]::EnumerateDirectories($path) | ForEach {
        if ($deprecated -notcontains $_.Name) {
            "$_\"
            searchDir $_
        }
    }
}

Another approach would be to enumerate everything with just one Get-ChildItem and filter the deprecated folders from the result afterwards, but since the network access is slow, I'm avoiding unnecessary enumeration in favor of the self-recursive function also used by the OP.

Important note.

Now the function is pipeline-friendly so that its result can be piped and processed immediately.
Whereas OP's function stopped further execution of a callee until all files were fetched because foreach statement accumulates the entire array before enumerating it. With slow network or large directory tree this can take minutes easily.

Upvotes: 1

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