Spaces In Variables - Powershell

Question

I've written a script which gets the subdirectories of a given (source) directory, and then checks for the existence of a matching subdirectory in another (destination) directory. If it exists in the destination, then it copies the contents of the subdirectory in to the destination. Here's what I have so far:

$src = read-host "Enter Source Dir"
$dst = read-host "Enter Destination Dir"
$log = read-host "Enter Log File Name"
foreach ($folder in Get-ChildItem -Path $src)
{
if ( -Not (Test-Path "$dst\$folder")) {} 
else {start-process robocopy.exe -ArgumentList "$src\$folder $dst\$folder /r:3 /w:5 /e /COPYALL /LOG+:D:\Temp\DataMigration\$log.log /zb /np /nc"}
}

The whole thing works quite nicely, unless the variables $src or $dst have a space within them. I also want to add a /XD Application Data argument to the argument list for robocopy, but the space in the name application data also causes errors.

Can anyone clear up how I can allow spaces where I need them as spaces rather than breaks in the script?

Thanks!

B

ie. · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-25 21:00:55Z

3

It looks like you should just wrap source and destination paths with a doubleqoutes and as soon as you need to use doublequotes inside another ones, you should escape them (inner doublequotes). There are several ways to do it. One of them is using backtick (`):

start-process robocopy.exe -ArgumentList "`"$src\$folder`" `"$dst\$folder`" /r:3 /w:5 /e /COPYALL /LOG+:D:\Temp\DataMigration\$log.log /zb /np /nc"

edited Jul 25, 2014 at 21:00

answered Jul 25, 2014 at 20:53

ie.

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1 Comment

user3878432 Over a year ago

Worked a treat including with the /XD flag for robocopy! Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated!

Keith Hill · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-25 21:04:22Z

2

Why are you using Start-Process for this? You can call robocopy directly from PowerShell:

robocopy.exe $src\$folder $dst\$folder /r:3 /w:5 /e /COPYALL /LOG+:D:\Temp\DataMigration\$log.log /zb /np /nc

answered Jul 25, 2014 at 21:04

Keith Hill

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1 Comment

user3878432 Over a year ago

I assumed calling it from powershell directly would make it pause until that copy op had completed before moving on to the next - but never checked to be honest as I had based my script above on a couple of other "standard" scripts I use. I'll bear your suggesting in mind for future though, thanks Keith!

filimonic · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-26 04:40:09Z

2

Correct form of -ArgumentList will look like this array:

Start-Process -Path 'robocopy.exe' -ArgumentList @(
            $(Join-Path -Path $src -ChildPath $folder),
            $(Join-Path -Path $dst -ChildPath $folder),
            '/r:3',
            '/w:5',
            '/e',
            '/COPYALL',
            '/LOG+:D:\Temp\DataMigration\$log.log',
            '/zb',
            '/np',
            '/nc')

So each element of array will be a separate argument, and will not be divided into parts in arguments parameter in robocopy.exe

And it is more preferrable to use $(Join-Path -Path $dst -ChildPath $folder) istead of "$dst\$folder"

answered Jul 26, 2014 at 4:40

filimonic

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