Continue in pipeline

Question

When defining the path I want to do numerous things, including skip if the folder already exists this is my attempt so far:

Get-ChildItem -Path $featureDirectory -Recurse | Where-Object {$_.PSIsContainer -eq $true} | 
    New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path {
        Write-Host "Checking if directory needed for " $_.Name
        # checking to see path is part of Copy To directory
        if($copyTo -Match $_.Name)
        {
            # checking if directory already exists
            $alreadyExists = Test-Path $copyTo
            if($alreadyExists)
            {
                Continue
            }
            Write-Host "Creating full directory path for directory for: " $copyTo
            $copyTo
        }else{
            Write-Host "Creating directory for: " $copyTo $_.Name
            Join-Path $copyTo $_.Name 
        }

    } -Force

However Continue breaks me out of the loop entirely. I guess it's not a true loop was wondering if there is a better way to achieve the above or not?

Second Attempt - Breaking it up

foreach ($directory in $directories)
{
    if($copyTo -match $directory.Name)
    {
        # checking if directory already exists
        $alreadyExists = Test-Path $copyTo
        if($alreadyExists)
        {
            continue
        }else{
            New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $copyTo -Force
        }           
    }else{
        $path = Join-Path $copyTo $directory.Name 
        New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $path -Force
    }
}

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11568221/using-foreach-with-get-childitem-recurse maybe split your command in two parts. — Ben H, Jul 28 '17 at 11:24
I don't understand why you need the statement at all, can't you just do `if (!$alreadyexists) {...}`? — arco444, Jul 28 '17 at 11:24
with continue you can skip the last part and jump just to the start (skip the item) — Ben H, Jul 28 '17 at 11:26
@BenH if you're already inside the first if and you only do the write-host if the file does *not* exist, you will skip back to the first part anyway because the else won't trigger — arco444, Jul 28 '17 at 11:28
You appear to be suffering from pipelineitis -- a condition where you want to stuff everything in a pipeline, even where a loop would be a better choice. You *are* allowed to use the `foreach` statement. — Jeroen Mostert, Jul 28 '17 at 11:30
@arco444 yes I can but the result is no argument provided to -Path in that scenario — Anicho, Jul 28 '17 at 11:30
@arco444 this is correct, just the "creating full..." will be skipped if(alreadyexists) — Ben H, Jul 28 '17 at 11:31
@JeroenMostert forgive me I am new to scripting fully in Powershell I am using link Ben H provided — Anicho, Jul 28 '17 at 11:31
`C:/Test` @arco444 your answer is right. I just need to replace $_. with $directory. in my second example — Anicho, Jul 28 '17 at 11:46
@arco444 If you write answer I will accept :) Thanks for your help all — Anicho, Jul 28 '17 at 11:46

score 0 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 28 '17 at 11:49

I fail to understand why you need a continue in the scenario you've given. Taking your second part, you could just do:

foreach ($directory in $directories)
{
    if($copyTo -match $directory.Name)
    {
        # checking if directory already exists
        $alreadyExists = Test-Path $copyTo
        if(!$alreadyExists){
          New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $copyTo -Force
        }
    }else{
        $path = Join-Path $copyTo $directory.Name 
        New-Item -ItemType Directory -Path $path -Force
    }
}

Continue in pipeline

1 Answers1