What do these Powershell commands do?
I have the following script with the following comments:
# Ask for the source folder
$sourceFolder = Read-Host "Source Folder"
# Ask for the destination folder
$targetFolder = Read-Host "Target Folder"
$SearchFile = 'ManualToHelpCmd.exe' # File to search for
$ExcludeFolders = 'Windows','Video' # Main folders in drives that should not be searched at all
# detect all local drives (HDD, SSD, USB, SD…) (no CD, DVD)
$Drives = (Get-CimInstance -ClassName Win32_LogicalDisk -Filter 'DriveType = 3 or DriveType = 2').DeviceID -as [Array]
# Get-CimInstance: Retrieves instances of a specific class from the CIM (Common Information Model)
# ClassName Win32_LogicalDisk: Specifies that information should be retrieved from the class Win32_LogicalDisk which describes the drives on the system
# Filter 'DriveType = 3 or DriveType = 2': A filter that selects only logical drives whose DriveType is 3 or 2. DriveType 3 stands for local hard drives, and DriveType 2 stands for removable drives (e.g. USB sticks).
# DeviceID: Accesses the DeviceID property of the returned logical drives, which represents the drive letters (e.g. C:, D:)
# -as [Array]: Converts the list of DeviceIDs into an array
# Check if drives were found
if (-not $Drives) {
Write-Host "No drives found." -ForegroundColor Red
exit
}
# the real workhorse
$Worker = {
param(
[Array]$Drives,
[String]$Filter,
[Array]$ExcludeFolders
)
# param(: Define the parameters that the script block accepts
# [Array]$Drives: An array of drives
# [String]$Filter: A string filter
# [Array]$ExcludeFolders: An array of folders to exclude
$Results = @() #Initializes an empty array variable named "Results" which is used to store the results.
foreach ($Drive in $Drives) { #Each element is stored in the variable $Drive.
$Results += (Get-ChildItem "$Drive\" -File -Filter $Filter -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).FullName #-ErrorAction: This parameter controls how the cmdlet responds to errors. SilentlyContinue: This setting causes errors to be detected but not displayed. It filters for errors, so to speak, but does not output them.
$Results += (Get-ChildItem "$Drive\" -Directory | Where-Object Name -notin $ExcludeFolders | Get-ChildItem -File -Filter $Filter -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).FullName #-Directory = only letters, | = and, Recurse = searches in
}
return $Results
}
# start the search…
if ($Drives.Length -lt 2) {
# if we only have one (physical) drive we can save the distribution to multiple jobs, just run the worker directly
Write-Host "$($Drives.Length) physical disk(s), single-stage search:" -ForegroundColor Magenta
$Result = & $Worker -Drives $Drives -Filter $SearchFile -ExcludeFolders $ExcludeFolders
} else {
# If there are multiple drives, distribute the work across multiple parallel jobs
$Jobs = $Drives | ForEach Object {
Write-Host "Browsing disk $_" -ForegroundColor Green
Start-Job -ScriptBlock $Worker -ArgumentList @($_ , $SearchFile, $ExcludeFolders)
}
$Result = $Jobs | Wait job | Receive job | Where-Object {$_}
}
# Debugging output for the found results
Write-Host "Files found:" -ForegroundColor Cyan
$Result | ForEach-Object { Write-Host $_-ForegroundColor Cyan }
if ($Result) {
# If multiple files are found, show selection
if ($Result.Count -gt 1) {
Write-Host "Multiple files with the same name were found. Select the desired file!" -ForegroundColor Yellow
$selectedFile = $Result | Out-GridView -Title "Select the file you want to use!" -OutputMode Single
} else {
$selectedFile = $Result
}
# The result (can also be multiple files with the same name)
if ($selectedFile) {
Write-Host "SelectedFile: $selectedFile" -ForegroundColor Green
& $selectedFile $sourceFolder $targetFolder
} else {
Write-Host "No file selected" -ForegroundColor Red
}
} else {
Write-Host "No file found" -ForegroundColor Red
}
But what do these two lines do?:
$Results += (Get-ChildItem "$Drive\" -File -Filter $Filter -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).FullName
$Results += (Get-ChildItem "$Drive\" -Directory | Where-Object Name -notin $ExcludeFolders | Get-ChildItem -File -Filter $Filter -Recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue).FullName
(1 votes)
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… searches the root directory of the drive passed in the $Drive variable. (at C: this is “C:\ “) –only after files with the filter mask ManualToHelpCmd.exe . .FullName limits the return value to the Property “FullName” .or nothing)
Long pipelines are always hard to read and comment, so I write them over several lines…
…and also add to $results
you can also read this in the Powershell documentation
If you don’t know exactly what command/pipelines are returning, execute them individually:
also terms like .FullName I don’t shake out my sleeves.
if you want to know what properties any file object has.
:
and something is output:
Simply search these two rows all specified drives for a specific file. The first line only searches in the root directory of the drives, while the second line recursively searches all subdirectories except the excluded folders. The results are collected in the $results variables.