How can I format my string to be recognized as a path in my PowerShell script?

Question

The point of this odd little script is just to let me choose a directory and have whatever is in my clipboard written to a text file in that path. This path will unfortunately always contain parentheses, brackets, and sometimes braces.

Y:

Function Get-Folder($initialDirectory="")

{
    [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.windows.forms")|Out-Null

    $foldername = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.FolderBrowserDialog
    $foldername.Description = "Select a folder"
    $foldername.rootfolder = "MyComputer"
    $foldername.SelectedPath = $initialDirectory

    if($foldername.ShowDialog() -eq "OK")
    {
        $folder += $foldername.SelectedPath
    }
    return $folder
}

$myFolder = Get-Folder('Y:\MyStuff (OtherStuff)')

Get-Clipboard > $myFolder\myFile.txt

Because of the brackets in the subfolder, I get this error message

out-file : Cannot perform operation because the wildcard path Y:\MyStuff
(OtherStuff)\Sub1\Sub2 [Info] [Some More Info]\myFile.txt did not resolve to a file.
At line:22 char:1
+ Get-Clipboard > $myFolder\myFile.txt
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (Y:\Music (MyStu...nfo]\myFile.txt:Stri 
   ng) [Out-File], FileNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : FileOpenFailure,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.OutF 
   ileCommand

No amount of -replace combinations to account for the escape characters using ' or \ has resulted in success. How can I format the string so it resolves to a real directory?

Second question Is there a way to select a path with the more user-friendly FileBrowserDialog instead of FolderBrowser where you can't type or paste in a path?

As an aside: In PowerShell, functions are invoked like shell commands - Get-Folder Y:\MyStuff (OtherStuff)' - not like C# methods - Get-Folder('Y:\MyStuff (OtherStuff)'); see Get-Help about_Parsing. If you use , to separate arguments, you'll construct an array that a function sees as a single argument. To prevent accidental use of method syntax, use `Set-StrictMode -Version 2 or higher, but note that this places additional constraints on your code. — mklement0
– mklement0, Commented Oct 26, 2020 at 1:20

mklement0 · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-26 19:50:26Z

2

Regrettably, > $myFolder\myFile.txt is the equivalent of
| Out-File -FilePath $myFolder\myFile.txt, and the -FilePath parameter^[1] interprets its argument as a wildcard expression, in which [ and ] have special meaning.

The workaround is to use the Out-File cmdlet - or with text input, the Set-Content cmdlet - with the -LiteralPath parameter, which uses its argument(s) literally (verbatim):

Get-Clipboard | Out-File -LiteralPath $myFolder\myFile.txt

Note: In Windows PowerShell, Out-File and Set-Content use different default character encodings; in PowerShell [Core] v6+, BOM-less UTF-8 is consistently used - see this answer.

To specify the desired encoding explicitly, use the -Encoding parameter.

^{[1] Note: In other cmdlets the equivalent parameter is named just -Path; in PowerShell [Core] v6+, this inconsistency was corrected, and Out-File there supports both -FilePath and -Path interchangeably.}

edited Oct 26, 2020 at 19:50

answered Oct 26, 2020 at 1:07

mklement0

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Doug Maurer · Accepted Answer · 2020-10-26 01:18:23Z

1

This function may answer question 2. It will even let you choose a directory inside a zip folder. Optional InitialDirectory and message.

function Get-Folder {
    Param(
        $initialDirectory = 17,
        $message = "Choose a directory"
    )

    $shell = New-Object -ComObject Shell.Application
    $selection = $shell.browseforfolder(0,$message,65556,$initialDirectory)
    if($selection){$selection.self.path}
}

get-folder 'c:\some\pa(th)'

answered Oct 26, 2020 at 1:18

Doug Maurer

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2 Comments

mklement0 Over a year ago

Nice; the method is documented here, and the constants for the initial dir. here.

Doug Maurer Over a year ago

Thanks. I also found these useful 1 2 3

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