powershell error checking during file copy with recursion

alphadev picture alphadev · Sep 28, 2010 · Viewed 14.9k times · Source

I have a program that copies folders and files recursively. example:

Copy-Item -path "$folderA" -destination "$folderB" -recurse 

Sometimes the files do not copy. Is there a way to "step inside the recursion" or a better way to do it, so I can enable some kind of error checking during the process rather than after wards. Possibly even do a Test-Path and prompt for a recopy?

Answer

David Pokluda picture David Pokluda · Sep 28, 2010

You can. For example the following code snippet will actually copy and check each file for possible errors. You can also put your custom code at the beginning to check for some prerequisites:

get-childItem $source -filter *.* | foreach-object {
    # here you can put your pre-copy tests...

    copy-item $_.FullName -destination $target -errorAction SilentlyContinue -errorVariable errors
    foreach($error in $errors)
    {
        if ($error.Exception -ne $null)
        {
            write-host -foregroundColor Red "Exception: $($error.Exception)"
        }
        write-host -foregroundColor Red "Error: An error occured during copy operation."
    }
}