IF Statement not working in Powershell

Question

I've been trying to get an IF-ELSE clause to work within my little powershell v2 script, and I think I'm having some problems with my parsing. Here's the code I have currently:

$dir = test-path C:\Perflogs\TestFolder 

IF($dir -eq "False") 
{
New-Item C:\Perflogs\TestFolder -type directory
get-counter -counter $p -Continuous | Export-Counter  C:\PerfLogs\TestFolder\Client_log.csv -Force -FileFormat CSV -Circular -MaxSize $1GBInBytes
}
Else
{
get-counter -counter $p -Continuous | Export-Counter  C:\PerfLogs\TestFolder\Client_log.csv -Force -FileFormat CSV -Circular -MaxSize $1GBInBytes
}

So basically I want it to establish the $dir variable as testing to see if the path I want exists. If it doesn't, it should create that folder and run the counters. If it does, it should not create the folder but should still run counters.

I've got $p defined elsewhere, and the get-counters statement works fine. Right now, whether the folder exists or not I'm getting an error about new-item not working.

Am I using the wrong operator for -eq after doing that test?

x0n · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-01 20:05:56Z

13

You should have:

if ($dir -eq $false)

because the string "False" is not equal to the boolean value $false.

answered May 1, 2013 at 20:05

x0n

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EBGreen · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-01 20:06:18Z

3

Try changing this:

IF($dir -eq "False")

to this:

IF($dir -eq $false)

answered May 1, 2013 at 20:06

EBGreen

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JoeB · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-09 15:56:22Z

1

x0n already answered, so I wont repeat that, but I noticed another "Gotcha" you should be aware of.

Your code is trying to test for the existence of a directory "TestFolder", however you test-path command is not restricted to checking only for directories. Meaning, if you actually happen to have a file by the same name "TestFolder" it will still return true.

To be more careful, you should add the "-PathType Container" switch so that it will fail if there is a file by that name and only pass if there is a directory by that name.

$dir = test-path C:\Perflogs\TestFolder -PathType Container

answered May 9, 2013 at 15:56

JoeB

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MDMoore313 · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-02 00:03:18Z

0

In addition to the other answers about $false, I've had syntax issues with v3. Specifically

if($dir -eq $false)
{

didn't work.

if($dir -eq $false){

did work. YMMV, but you've been warned.

answered May 2, 2013 at 0:03

MDMoore313

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3 Comments

x0n Over a year ago

this is nonsense. both styles work fine. this is not javascript.

NewSites Over a year ago

@x0n - It's not nonsense. I've experienced the same behavior in v 5.1.

NewSites Over a year ago

Update on placement of opening curly bracket: On closer inspection, it now appears that I do not experience the above behavior with if, but it is happening when piping output to ForEach-object. I.e., if I pipe output to ForEach-object and if the opening curly bracket after ForEach-object is on the next line instead of on the same line, then I get the run-time prompt: "cmdlet ForEach-Object at command pipeline position 1 / Supply values for the following parameters: / Process[0]:" However, that prompt does not occur if I put a line continuation back-tick after ForEach-object.

Ranganath Vaishnav · Accepted Answer · 2021-05-21 07:17:53Z

0

It might work If($? -ne 0)

if the given condition is false, which is defined in earlier variables(This is not for the above question)

If($dir -contains 'False')

answered May 21, 2021 at 7:17

Ranganath Vaishnav

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