Hello

It seems that Powershell 1.0 was shipped without a working -exclude
parameter on any of the file IO functions (Get-childitem, Remove-Item,
Move-Item, Copy-Item, etc.



Has anyone made or found replacement cmdlets that do have working -exclude
parameters?

This is a really strange thing. I think Powershell is one of the best things
to come out of MS in the recent years, and have been using it since the first
Beta. But I have not needed the esclude until now, and it surprises me that
such fundamental functionality does not work. It further surprises me that
the parameter was left in, and the help just says it does not work. Wy not
ship without the parameter?

My situation is that I need to copy from a source path to a destunation
path, recursively, with a bunch of files and folder names excluded from the
copy. Examples of the exclude list are ("*.cs", "*.sln","*.suo", "*.csproj",
"*.csproj.*", "\obj")

Thanks
David

bep@xxxxxx wrote:

> Hello
>
> It seems that Powershell 1.0 was shipped without a working -exclude
> parameter on any of the file IO functions (Get-childitem, Remove-Item,
> Move-Item, Copy-Item, etc.
>
> Has anyone made or found replacement cmdlets that do have working -exclude
> parameters?
>
> This is a really strange thing. I think Powershell is one of the best things
> to come out of MS in the recent years, and have been using it since the first
> Beta. But I have not needed the esclude until now, and it surprises me that
> such fundamental functionality does not work. It further surprises me that
> the parameter was left in, and the help just says it does not work. Wy not
> ship without the parameter?
>
> My situation is that I need to copy from a source path to a destunation
> path, recursively, with a bunch of files and folder names excluded from the
> copy. Examples of the exclude list are ("*.cs", "*.sln","*.suo", "*.csproj",
> "*.csproj.*", "\obj")
>
> Thanks
> David

Yes, I'm sure it can be done, especially if you need to create
directories at the destination, but it may be easier for you to use
something like xcopy from DOS.

Marco

--
Microsoft MVP - Windows PowerShell
http://www.microsoft.com/mvp

PowerGadgets MVP
http://www.powergadgets.com/mvp

Blog:
http://marcoshaw.blogspot.com

Yes, I though about that, but it seems a large step backwards. I thought
Powershell was the future.

The biggest problem I have with xcopy is the reliance on a file on the hard
drive listing all of the exclude items. If I could pass in the exclusion list
via memory, it would be acceptable. The file slows things down a little, and
is a risk if that file is not there at runtime.

Thanks
David

"Marco Shaw [MVP]" wrote:

> bep@xxxxxx wrote:

> > Hello
> >
> > It seems that Powershell 1.0 was shipped without a working -exclude
> > parameter on any of the file IO functions (Get-childitem, Remove-Item,
> > Move-Item, Copy-Item, etc.
> >
> > Has anyone made or found replacement cmdlets that do have working -exclude
> > parameters?
> >
> > This is a really strange thing. I think Powershell is one of the best things
> > to come out of MS in the recent years, and have been using it since the first
> > Beta. But I have not needed the esclude until now, and it surprises me that
> > such fundamental functionality does not work. It further surprises me that
> > the parameter was left in, and the help just says it does not work. Wy not
> > ship without the parameter?
> >
> > My situation is that I need to copy from a source path to a destunation
> > path, recursively, with a bunch of files and folder names excluded from the
> > copy. Examples of the exclude list are ("*.cs", "*.sln","*.suo", "*.csproj",
> > "*.csproj.*", "\obj")
> >
> > Thanks
> > David

>
> Yes, I'm sure it can be done, especially if you need to create
> directories at the destination, but it may be easier for you to use
> something like xcopy from DOS.
>
> Marco
>
> --
> Microsoft MVP - Windows PowerShell
> http://www.microsoft.com/mvp
>
> PowerGadgets MVP
> http://www.powergadgets.com/mvp
>
> Blog:
> http://marcoshaw.blogspot.com
>

Don't give up on PowerShell. This quick script should give you an idea, it'll copy all files -except for those excluded- from <Source> to <Destination> maintaining Source's tree structure. It overwrites any existing item, but you can easily modify that or any other inconvinience. I tested it on v2 CTP, should work on v1.

Pass the full path to Source, Destination and the contents of the exclusions file in an expression:

.\Copy-Item_2 <source> <destination> (gc <exclusions file>)

-< Copy-Item_2.ps1 >-
param ([string]$src, [string]$dest, [string[]]$exc)

# create an escaped version of Source to replace it with Destination
$escSrc = [regex]::escape($src)

# get all items not excluded
$items = ls $src -ex $exc -r -fo

# create subdirs in Destination
$items | ? {$_.psIsContainer} | sort fullname |
% {[void](ni ($_.fullname -replace $escSrc, $dest) -i d* -ea 0)}

# copy files to their respective subdir
$items | ? {!$_.psIsContainer} |
% {cpi $_.fullname ($_.fullname -replace $escSrc, $dest) -fo -ea 0}
-< end >-

--
Kiron

Hi

> The biggest problem I have with xcopy is the reliance on a file on the hard
> drive listing all of the exclude items. If I could pass in the exclusion list
> via memory, it would be acceptable. The file slows things down a little, and
> is a risk if that file is not there at runtime.

And what about robocopy? That's my personal favorite...

cu

Max

bep@xxxxxx wrote:

> Yes, I though about that, but it seems a large step backwards. I thought
> Powershell was the future.

Kiron provided a good example.

PowerShell is the future, but it still has some things that can be improved.

The ability to drop back to good old DOS commands isn't all that bad
sometimes, and helps with older stuff.

Marco

David,

Get-ChildItem works if all you want to do is exclude file extensions and
use the syntax:

get-childitem C:\Folder -recurse -exclude *.cs,*.sln,*.suo,*.csproj.*

But I've been unable to get the other commands to work properly with
exclude. Also, to exclude subfolders like \obj\, I think you'll need a
custom function.

Gordon


bep@xxxxxx wrote:

> Hello
>
> It seems that Powershell 1.0 was shipped without a working -exclude
> parameter on any of the file IO functions (Get-childitem, Remove-Item,
> Move-Item, Copy-Item, etc.
>
> Has anyone made or found replacement cmdlets that do have working -exclude
> parameters?
>
> This is a really strange thing. I think Powershell is one of the best things
> to come out of MS in the recent years, and have been using it since the first
> Beta. But I have not needed the esclude until now, and it surprises me that
> such fundamental functionality does not work. It further surprises me that
> the parameter was left in, and the help just says it does not work. Wy not
> ship without the parameter?
>
> My situation is that I need to copy from a source path to a destunation
> path, recursively, with a bunch of files and folder names excluded from the
> copy. Examples of the exclude list are ("*.cs", "*.sln","*.suo", "*.csproj",
> "*.csproj.*", "\obj")
>
> Thanks
> David

I missed the folder names in the exclusions, the 'quick' script does not exclude subDirs under the excluded folder that contain non excluded files. Should work as long as the excluded folder names begin with a backslash '\' and don't contain an asterisk '*'.

I've attached two modified versions that will:

Script1 when exclusions are stored as one string, like:
"*.cs","*.sln","*.suo","*.csproj","*.csproj.*","\obj"

Script2 when exclusions are stored as a single line, like:
*.cs
*.sln
*.suo
*.csproj
*.csproj.*
\obj


--
Kiron