Powershell Pattern Matching Regular Expression

Question

On our servers we have files similar to the following:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Sun\Java\jre1.6.0_01\
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Sun\Java\jre1.6.0_02\
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Sun\Java\jre1.6.0_03\
etc

We don't need these files any more so I am trying to write a powershell script to delete them. For now I am limiting myself to one particular server and I have the following script:

 $path = "\\server\c$\Documents and Settings\"
 Get-ChildItem $path -Recurse | Where {$_.PSIsContainer -and ($_ -match '^jre1.6.0_')} | Remove-Item -Recurse -WhatIf

The problem is that the pattern I am using doesn't seem to be calling a match and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've tried several permutations and none seem to work. Can any regex gurus out there shed some light on what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks Brad

CB. · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-08 09:33:52Z

3

Try like this:

Get-ChildItem $path -Recurse -Force | ....

-Force looks for hidden or system files/folders also.

The "Application Data" folder is Hidden!

edited May 8, 2012 at 9:33

answered May 8, 2012 at 9:25

CB.

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1 Comment

Brad Over a year ago

That was it! It wasn't going into the hidden folders. Thank you!

Paolo Tedesco · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-07 20:27:21Z

1

The regex is ok, I think you should try

$_.Name -match '^jre1.6.0_'

and not just

$_ -match '^jre1.6.0_'

edited May 7, 2012 at 20:27

answered May 7, 2012 at 17:35

Paolo Tedesco

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10 Comments

Keith Hill Over a year ago

Using $_ -match ... relies on the object's ToString() behavior. So yeah, I'd use $_.Name -match ... in a script.

Brad Over a year ago

That doesn't seem to be working either. I've let the script run for 10+ minutes and its not returning anything. I'll continue to let it run till it completes to see if maybe it just needs more time to recurse all the directories.

Brad Over a year ago

It finally finished - no results. PS C:\Documents and Settings\user\desktop> .\cleanjava.ps1 PS C:\Documents and Settings\user\desktop>

Paolo Tedesco Over a year ago

@Brad: maybe you got no results because you are filtering on $_.PSIsContainer, and that gets only directories?

Brad Over a year ago

Thats exactly what I am looking for - directories whose name begins with jre1.6.0_

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