Get-ChidItem Piped to Copy-Item

PowerShell Help
1

Below is the Sample Code

  1. Am trying to Copy files from one Folder to another folder using below code but it does not copy

Method 1 (It does not copy anything, it only creates a file with $FolderName)

$Date = Get-Date -UFormat “%Y%m%d”
$FolderName = "D:\SONPD" + $Date.ToString()
Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\Production_Backup" -Exclude SONPDA | Copy-Item -Destination $FolderName

Method 2 (throws below Error)

$Date = Get-Date -UFormat “%Y%m%d”
$FolderName = "D:\SONPD" + $Date.ToString()
Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\Production_Backup" -Exclude SONPDA | Select -ExpandProperty FullName | Copy-Item -Path $_.FullName -Destination $FolderName

Error

Copy-Item : Cannot bind argument to parameter ‘Path’ because it is null.
At line:3 char:113

  • … opy-Item -Path $_.FullName -Destination $FolderName
  •                ~~~~~~~~~~~
    • CategoryInfo : InvalidData: (:slight_smile: [Copy-Item], ParameterBindingValidationException
    • FullyQualifiedErrorId : ParameterArgumentValidationErrorNullNotAllowed,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.CopyItemCommand

Can some please help me on this to figure whats going wrong.

2

Number 1 should work. Without knowing the exact structure of your folder/filesystem there though its hard to tell what is going on. Using the same three lines on a similar folder setup on my machine works just fine (as long as you were looking to only go one level deep with the copy)

Number 2 throws an error because once you do select -expandProperty it no longer has a property name of fullname and you need to wrap it in a foreach-object so that line becomes:

Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\Production_Backup\" -Exclude SONPDA | Select -ExpandProperty FullName | foreach-object{Copy-Item -Path $_ -Destination $FolderName}

If you just do

Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\Production_Backup\" -Exclude SONPDA

Do you see the expected output?

3

Paul,
Thanks for the quick reply.
MY Folder Structure is as below
D:\Production_Backup
SONPDA (Folder)
1.dat (File)
2.dat (File)
3.log (File)
4.bcf (File)

As per your statement

  1. Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\Production_Backup" -Exclude SONPDA | Select -ExpandProperty FullName | foreach-object{Copy-Item -Path $_ -Destination $FolderName}

This is creating just a file Name with $FolderName

  1. Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\Production_Backup" -Exclude SONPDA (according to my structure) am getting the below correct out put

    1.dat (File)
    2.dat (File)
    3.log (File)
    4.bcf (File)

4

Can you show the EXACT output of this command

Get-ChildItem -Path "D:\Production_Backup"

Thanks

5

Hi Richard,

Please find the below out put which list all files and folder SONPDA

Mode LastWriteTime Length Name

d---- 9/6/2017 11:59 PM SONPDA
-a— 9/6/2017 10:00 PM 17053184 HDR9_SDB_SiteBackup.dat
-a— 9/6/2017 10:00 PM 843 SONPD.bcf
-a— 9/6/2017 10:00 PM 2372 SONPDBackup.log
-a— 9/6/2017 10:00 PM 673468928 SONPD_CatalogBackup.dat
-a— 9/6/2017 10:00 PM 429038080 SONPD_Model_Backup.dat

6

Hi All,

I have tried the below Code also it does not work

D:\Rooster\Scripts> $Date = Get-Date -UFormat “%Y%m%d”
$FolderName = "D:\SONPD" + $Date.ToString()
$Files = Get-ChildItem -Path ‘D:\Production_Backup*’ -Exclude SONPDA | Select -Property Name,@{label=“Path”;Expression ={$_.FullName}} | Select -Property Path

foreach ($sFile in $Files)
{
Copy-Item -LiteralPath $sFile.Path -Destination $FolderName -Recurse (with or without -Recurse its not working)
}

7

Hi All,

Any advise and help on this please

Thanks
Rajkumar

8

Method 1 in your first post works if the folder in the destination path exists, if it doesn’t exist copy-item creates a file with the same name. With your script you need to create a folder with the current date as name before you try to copy files to it.

9

Eric,

It worked thanks for the help. highly appreciated.

Rajkumar