Combine the results of two distinct Get-ChildItem calls into single variable to do the same processing on them
I asked this on Stack Overflow:
I’m trying to write a PowerShell script to build a list of files, from several directories. After all directories have been added to the main list, I’d like to do the same processing on all files.
This is what I have:
$items = New-Object Collections.Generic.List[IO.FileInfo]
$loc1 = @(Get-ChildItem -Path "\\server\C$\Program Files (x86)\Data1\" -Recurse)
$loc2 = @(Get-ChildItem -Path "\\server\C$\Web\DataStorage\" -Recurse)
$items.Add($loc1) # This line fails (the next also fails)
$items.Add($loc2)
# Processing code is here
which fails with this error:
Cannot convert argument “0”, with value: “System.Object[]”, for “Add” to type “System.IO.FileInfo”: “Cannot convert the “System.Object[]” va lue of type “System.Object[]” to type “System.IO.FileInfo”.”
I am mostly interested in what is the correct approach for this type of situation. I realize that my code is a very C way of doing it — if there is a more PowerShell way to acomplish the same task, I’m all for it. The key, is that the number of $loc#'s may change over time, so adding and removing one or two should be easy in the resulting code.
Keith Hill answered (40 upvotes):
Not sure you need a generic list here. You can just use a PowerShell array e.g.:
$items = @(Get-ChildItem '\\server\C$\Program Files (x86)\Data1\' -r) $items += @(Get-ChildItem '\\server\C$\Web\DataStorage\' -r)PowerShell arrays can be concatenated using
+=.
Originally posted on Stack Overflow — 25 upvotes. Licensed under CC BY-SA.
