Print counting before the names of the files

Question

I want to show the names of the files of some folder showing a counter before it. For example, if the folder has the following files:

file1.txt
file2.txt
file3.txt

I want to show in the powershell screen the folowing:

1 - file1.txt
2 - file 2.txt
3 - file3.txt

I wrote the following code to do that:

$maxfile=Get-ChildItem -Path C:\directory | Measure-Object | %{$_.Count}
For ($i=0; $i -le $maxfile-1; $i++){
    $j=$i+1
    Write-Host -NoNewline "$j  "
    Get-ChildItem -Path  C:\directory -name | Select-Object -First 1 -Skip $i 
}

It worked the way I wanted perfectly, but when there's a lot of files it takes quite a while to run it. I'm new with powershell and wonder if there is there some more direct way of doing this.

Answer 1

Why so difficult? I think this will already do what you want:

$Folder = 'C:\Directory'
$i = 1
Get-ChildItem -Path $Folder -File | Sort-Object Name | ForEach-Object {
    "{0:D3} - {1}" -f $i++, $_.Name
}

Result:

001 - file1.txt
002 - file2.txt
003 - file3.txt
...

You can leave out the | Sort-Object Name.

This will add a counter with leading zeroes. I chose to display 3 digits, so maximum is 999 items, but you're welcome to increase that number in {0:D3}