CODEWITHSUNDEEP
powershell
TMC FAMILY
TMC FAMILY

Reputation: 119

PowerShell - Return file search results with the ability to select which file you want to open

Here is my code which works but I'm not sure how to add the ability to number the results and select which file to open.

I'm not a programmer by no means it took me a week just to get this far so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

# Find pdf files by name on my network share then select one from the list of return matches to open 

Write-Host "Enter a File Name" 

$fileName = Read-Host

# Set the path to the folder you want to search
$folderPath = "\\MyNetworkShare"

$pdfFile = Get-ChildItem -path $folderPath  -Recurse -Filter *.pdf |Where-Object {$_.Name -match $fileName} | Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName

# If there is a match, open the PDF in Microsoft Edge
if ($pdfFile)
{
    Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" $pdfFile
    Write-Host "$pdfFile"
    pause 10
}
else {
    Write-Host "File not found"
}

Current Output

Enter a File Name
465430
\\MyNetworkShare\Tk.465430.1668780736.001.pdf
Press Enter to continue...: 
PS C:\Users\timothy\Desktop\POWERSHELL>

I would like the output to be:

No File
-- ----
1  Tk.465430.1668780736.001.pdf
2  Tk.465430.1668780737.001.pdf
3  Tk.465430.1668780738.001.pdf

Select a file to open:

Upvotes: 0

Views: 103

Answers (1)

Abraham Zinala
Abraham Zinala

Reputation: 4694

You can use a for loop to iterate through the files returned while assigning them their index number in the list of $pdfFile. Since im very fond of PSCustomObjects I will use that for the demonstration's purposes, but this can be done other ways with the simplest probably being piping to Out-GridView:

$fileName = Read-Host -Prompt 'Enter a File Name'

# Set the path to the folder you want to search
$folderPath = '\\networkshare'
if ($pdfFile = Get-ChildItem -Path $folderPath -Filter "*$fileName*.pdf" -File -Recurse )
{
    & {
        for ($i = 0; $i -lt $pdfFile.Count; $i++)
        {
            [pscustomobject]@{
                $('#' + (' ' * $pdfFile.Count.Length)) = $i + 1
                PDFName = '{0}' -f $pdfFile[$i].BaseName
                Created = '{0}' -f $pdfFile[$i].CreationTime
            }
        }
    } | Out-String -Stream
    $selection = (Read-Host -Prompt 'Enter PDF(s) to open') -split ',' | % 'Trim'
    foreach ($selected in $selection)
    {
        $pdf = $pdfFile[$selected - 1]
        Start-Process -FilePath "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application\msedge.exe" $pdf.FullName
        Write-Host $pdf
        pause 10
    }
}
else
{
    Write-Host -Object "No file with name `"$fileName`" found."
}

The code needed to run this should just be a for loop with a selection option, but due to how Read-Host beats the object output to the pipeline, there's some workarounds implemented. Also, starting the selection at 1 causes you to subtract by 1 on the selected since arrays start at 0.

Upvotes: 1

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