List files with strings and then ALL files checked with powershell

Question

I want to search for all files, of .exe.config for certain strings. I want to list the files with those strings and then list all of the files that were checked. I can get it to find the files with the strings with:

Get-ChildItem -Path c:\ -I *.exe.config -R| Select-String 'string1','string2'

My issue, I can't figure out how to get it to show all the .exe.config files that it checked (without searching the computer again). I thought I could save the intial search results into a variable. Then run through that with a for loop, but I can't even get the right info into a variable. I tried several variations of below, but $files is always empty. Also, I'm not sold on this approach, so if anyone has a completely different method, that would be fine

$files = (Get-ChildItem -Path c:\ -I *.exe.config -R).Path
$files = (Get-ChildItem -Path c:\ -I *.exe.config -R | select fullname)

mklement0 · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-22 13:47:02Z

2

Use the common -OutVariable parameter to capture Get-ChildItem's output in a variable of your choice, separately from what the pipeline overall outputs:

Get-ChildItem c:\ -Include *.exe.config -Recurse -OutVariable files |
  Select-String 'string1','string2'

Variable $file now contains all System.IO.FileInfo instances output by Get-ChildItem; note how you must pass the variable name without the $ sigil to -OutVariable.

A small caveat is that -OutVariable, as of PowerShell [Core] 7.0:

collects multi-object output in a System.Collections.ArrayList instance rather than in a regular PowerShell array of type [object[]] (fixed-size array of System.Object instances).
even collects single-object output that way (wrapped in a collection) - whereas direct pipeline output just emits the object itself.

See this answer for background information and a workaround.

edited Feb 22, 2020 at 13:47

answered Feb 22, 2020 at 13:14

mklement0

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1 Comment

mklement0 Over a year ago

Glad to hear it was helpful, @boblewis, and thanks for accepting and catching the typo - fixed now.

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