CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
Daniel Dellham
Daniel Dellham

Reputation: 13

Delete directories with files containing specific string in PowerShell

Trying with Windows PowerShell to delete all directories that contain a XML-file with a specific content. Getting as far as listing all the files containing the correct pattern with

ls -r -Filter *.xml | ?{ $_ | Select-String -Pattern "ACC_cont"}

but can´t get the paths from the output and delete the directory and all it´s content. There might be more than one direcotry with a XML-file with the right pattern, and I like to delete them all.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1250

Answers (1)

mklement0
mklement0

Reputation: 439842

Try the following:

Get-ChildItem -Recurse -Filter *.xml | 
  Select-String -List -Pattern "ACC_cont" |
    Remove-Item -Recurse -LiteralPath { Split-Path -Parent $_.Path } -WhatIf

-WhatIf previews the operation; remove it to perform actual deletion.

  • Select-String directly accepts file-info objects output by Get-ChildItem from the pipeline.

    • -List makes Select-String stop after the 1st match in a file, which improves efficiency.

  • The match-info objects output by Select-String have a .Path property that contains the input file path, so Split-Path -Parent $_.Path gets a matching file's director path.

  • Passing Split-Path -Parent $_.Path inside a script block ({ ... }) to Remove-Item's -LiteralPath parameter is instance of a delay-bind script block that provides parameter values derived dynamically from each input object, so that Remove-Item -Recurse removes every directory in which a matching XML file was found.

Upvotes: 2

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