Adding text to list output

Question

I need to format, add text to, a list of files I am getting using Powershell. I can simply use the following script to get my list of files:

Get-ChildItem("c:\path") | where {$_.Length -eq 0} | select name

This works well returning a list of file names:

file1.txt
file2.txt
file2.txt

What I am trying to do is add additional text to the output so it looks more like this:

'file1.txt',
'file2.txt',
'file3.txt',

This I am finding to be more difficult than it should be. I tried this:

$l = Get-ChildItem("c:\path") | where {$_.Length -eq 0} | select name | foreach($_) { "'$_,"}

This doesn't quite do it, as the field name is added to the output:

'@{Name=file1.txt}.Name',
'@{Name=file2.txt}.Name',
'@{Name=file3.txt}.Name',

Is there a way to format this better or remove the object information?

alroc · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-23 19:36:51Z

3

You're very close. Use the -expandproperty parameter for select-object to get the property as a simple array of strings.

$l = Get-ChildItem("c:\path") |
    where {$_.Length -eq 0} |
    select -expandproperty name | foreach($_) { "'$_,"}

answered Dec 23, 2013 at 19:36

alroc

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1 Comment

Brettski Over a year ago

I selected this method as it provides the most control over which fields you may want to select from.

mjolinor · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-23 19:44:46Z

1

Try this

$l = Get-ChildItem("D:\Test") | where { $_.Length -eq 0 } | %{"'$_',"}

edited Dec 23, 2013 at 19:44

mjolinor

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answered Dec 23, 2013 at 19:33

Yevgeniy.Chernobrivets

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4 Comments

Brettski Over a year ago

Strange, this does work. Why is $_ in the last part only returning the Name and not all the fields? I would assume it still contains everything, or is it only returning the first field?

Brettski Over a year ago

What does the % do? e.g. %{"'$_',"}

Yevgeniy.Chernobrivets Over a year ago

% is alias for "foreach" cmdlet

Yevgeniy.Chernobrivets Over a year ago

I think $_ works because there might be some ToString method which is called when you are providing value in string.

mjolinor · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-23 20:08:38Z

1

If you've got V3 or better you can do it this way:

@((Get-ChildItem c:\path  | where Length -eq 0).name) -match '\S'| foreach { "'$_'," }

edited Dec 23, 2013 at 20:08

answered Dec 23, 2013 at 19:42

mjolinor

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1 Comment

Brettski Over a year ago

Issue with this is that '', is returned if there are no files returned.

BLUEPIXY · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-23 19:39:19Z

0

$l = Get-ChildItem("c:\path") | where {$_.Length -eq 0} | select $_.Name | foreach { "'$_'," }

answered Dec 23, 2013 at 19:39

BLUEPIXY

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