CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershellget-childitem
Dan Hess
Dan Hess

Reputation: 1

Get-ChildItem - Cannot find path

Get-ChildItem gets an error when the path is a variable

This works:

PS D:\DMH> Get-ChildItem -Path '\\MHRZRSEFS501\F$\NewSkies FileShares\FRBatch$\Test\Test.txt'

Directory: \\MHRZRSEFS501\F$\NewSkies FileShares\FRBatch$\Test


Mode                LastWriteTime         Length Name                                                                                                                                          
----                -------------         ------ ----                                                                                                                                          
-a----        5/19/2019   2:45 AM             18 Test.txt

But if I put the Path into a variable it doesn't work:

PS D:\DMH> $SPath = "'\\MHRZRSEFS501\F$\NewSkies FileShares\FRBatch$\Test\Test.txt'"

Get-ChildItem -Path $SPath

Write-Host "SPath =$SPath" 

Get-ChildItem : Cannot find path 'D:\DMH\'\MHRZRSEFS501\F$\NewSkies FileShares\FRBatch$\Test\Test.txt'' because it does not exist.
***
SPath ='\\MHRZRSEFS501\F$\NewSkies FileShares\FRBatch$\Test\Test.txt'

D:\DMH\ is obviously the directory where I launched PowerShell from but how did it get in the path for the command?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 2935

Answers (2)

Bbb
Bbb

Reputation: 649

This was an absolute nightmare, get-childitem cannot except a string variable if there are multiple paths. Use an array instead.

Get-ChildItem -Path "\server1\c$\temp", "\server1\d$\temp" -File -recurse # works

$path = '"\server1\c$\temp", "\server1\d$\temp"'; Get-ChildItem -Path "\server1\c$\temp", "\server1\d$\temp" -File -recurse # fails with cannot find path

$path = "'"\server1\c$\temp", "\server1\d$\temp'""; Get-ChildItem -Path "\server1\c$\temp", "\server1\d$\temp" -File -recurse # fails with illegal character message (the tick)

Any string that has multiple paths fails, however an array with += as shown below will work.

$servers = @("server1", "server2");
$partialPaths = @("\c$\temp\", "\d$\temp\");
foreach ($server in $servers)
    {
        $paths = @();
        foreach ($partialPath in $partialPaths)
        {
            $paths += "\\" + $server + $partialPath;
        }
    }   
Get-ChildItem -Path $paths -File -recurse;

Upvotes: 0

Esperento57
Esperento57

Reputation: 17472

Double quote ask to PowerShell to evaluate the string. Try this (without double quote):

$SPath = '\\MHRZRSEFS501\F$\NewSkies FileShares\FRBatch$\Test\Test.txt'

Upvotes: 1

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