Getting positional errors for batch robocopy script that takes in array arguments for sources, destinations, and switches

PowerShell Help
1

Thank you for reading. I am trying to create a batch robocopy Powershell script so I don’t have to manually robocopy multiple folders, just pass in the parameters, however I’m getting positional based errors and am having trouble understanding what I did wrong.

The Powershell script:

# Use arguments and pass into command
param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
    [string[]]$sources,

    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
    [string[]]$destinations,

    # Define robocopy options, if nothing's passed in as the parameter this is the default
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$false)]
    [string[]]$robocopyOptions = @('/MIR', '/COPYALL', '/DCOPY:DAT', '/R:3', '/W:5', '/LOG+:robocopy.log')
)

if ($sources.Count -eq 0) {
    Write-Host "Error: There are no source paths."
    exit
}

if ($destinations.Count -eq 0) {
    Write-Host "Error: There are no destination paths."
    exit
}

# Verify that the number of source and destination paths match
if ($sources.Count -ne $destinations.Count) {
    Write-Host "Error: Number of source paths does not match the number of destination paths."
    exit
}

# Loop through each source-destination pair and run robocopy
for ($i = 0; $i -lt $sources.Count; $i++) {
    $source = $sources[$i]
    $destination = $destinations[$i]

    # Check if source and destination paths exist
    if (-not (Test-Path $source)) {
        Write-Host "Source path '$source' does not exist. Skipping this iteration."
        continue
    }

    if (-not (Test-Path $destination)) {
        Write-Host "Destination path '$destination' does not exist. Skipping this iteration."
        continue
    }

    Write-Host "Copying from $source to $destination"

    # Run robocopy
    robocopy $source $destination $robocopyOptions

    Write-Host $source $destination $robocopyOptions
}

Write-Host "All copy operations completed."

First command I used to try to see if I can have multiple sources. I run this in cmd as administrator.

powershell.exe  -File "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1" -sources "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY A", "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY C" -destinations "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY B", "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY D"

D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1 : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument
'D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY C'.
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1

I thought it might have had something to do with me not writing the arguments correctly because I had spaces between my elements in the array?

powershell.exe -File "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1" -sources "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY A","D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY C" -destinations "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY B","D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY D"
Source path 'D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY A,D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY C' does not exist. Skipping this iteration.
All copy operations completed.

A different command I tried without multiple sources and destinations and trying to pass in parameters for robocopyOptions, got the same positional error but for a different place.

powershell.exe  -File "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1" -sources "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY A" -destinations "D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY B" -robocopyOptions "/SEC", "/MOVE", "/E" 
D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1 : A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument '/MOVE,'.
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1], ParentContainsErrorRecordException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : PositionalParameterNotFound,BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1

I looked at Powershell: A positional parameter cannot be found that accepts argument “xxx” but still don’t really understand the issue because I did put the parameter name?

I was also looking at Powershell with Robocopy and Arguments Passing - Stack Overflow too, and from my understanding, to pass in robocopy switches, the best way to do it is to make an array of separate values, and that’s why I made robocopyOptions an array.

Passing in only one source and one destination without passing in arguments for robocopyOptions works. So am I doing something wrong with my arrays? I don’t get what I could be doing wrong there because I thought you’re supposed to just separate the arguments by commas.

2

You’re calling Powershell.exe, but then passing it the parameters you have in your script. Powershell.exe does not accept those params, your script does. The only one that does work is -File.

Instead, just use PowerShell, and run the script with params from PS directly:

& '.\BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1' -sources '.\Data\' -destinations '.\Test'

If you absolutely have to use powershell.exe to call it, you need to use the -Command parameter on powershell.exe so you can execute yourr command and parameters. take a look at the help doc for powershell .exe for help on that, it has some examples:

powershell.exe /h

Side note:

I’d review your code a bit, definitely some unnecessary stuff IMO.

  1. If you have a mandatory param, you really don’t need to check if the count is 0. by having it mandatory it means you have to have something there.
  2. Look into the ForEach-Object cmdlet. It’ll greatly improve the readability and overall flow instead of that for loop.
3 
param (
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)]
    [hashtable]$sourceDestinationMap,

    # Define robocopy options, if nothing's passed in as the parameter this is the default
    [Parameter(Mandatory=$false)]
    [string[]]$robocopyOptions = @('/MIR', '/COPYALL', '/DCOPY:DAT', '/R:3', '/W:5', '/LOG+:robocopy.log')
)

# Verify that the number of source and destination paths match
if ($sourceDestinationMap.keys.Count -ne $sourceDestinationMap.values.Count) {
    Write-Host "Error: Number of source paths does not match the number of destination paths."
    exit
}

$sourceDestinationMap.GetEnumerator() | ForEach-Object {
    $source = $_.Key
    $destination = $_.Value

    if (-not (Test-Path $source)) {
        Write-Host "Source path '$($source)' does not exist. Skipping this iteration."
        continue
    }

    if (-not (Test-Path $destination)) {
        Write-Host "Destination path '$($destination)' does not exist. Skipping this iteration."
        continue
    }

    # Run robocopy
    robocopy $source $destination $robocopyOptions

    Write-Host  "`nROBOCOPY `"$($source)`" `"$($destination)`" $($robocopyOptions)`n"
}

Write-Host "All copy operations completed."

Tested with this and it’s working correctly
powershell.exe -Command "& '.\BATCH ROBOCOPY.ps1' -sourceDestinationMap @{'D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY A' = 'D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY B'; 'D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY C' = 'D:\OTHER\TỰ ĐỘNG HÓA\BATCH ROBOCOPY D'} -robocopyOptions '/SEC', '/MOVE', '/E'"

Thank you so much for explaining.

I’m trying to run this as a task schedule and am not sure how I’d do that without calling Powershell then? Because in the task you’d have to start a program from my understanding. Again I’m not really familiar much with it so my bad for not getting something obvious. Is it bad to call Powershell this way?

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4

Not necessarily bad. It just depends on what you’re doing. For example, if this was just a script you were gonna run ad-hoc, i wouldn’t do it via powershell.exe, I’d just launch PS and run it. I actually think via Scheduled Task, this way makes sense, and in fact, is how I often call scripts/function as well, so I think you’re good there!

1 Like
5

Ok, thank you so much for your help, I appreciate it. Yea I’m making this a scheduled task to copy files in specific folders to specific folders every several months, automation baby. :slight_smile:

1 Like
6

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