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functionpowershellloopsinputget-childitem

Powershell Function String output as input to File based functions

I have Powershell v5 running in Windows 10 64Bit OS.

And I also have a nice trick to make the paths with square brackets compatible to be read by Powershell by escaping with tilde signs like $Path.Replace('[','[' ).Replace(']',']'), so intuitively I thought, why not make it a function like below for the same:

Function GetEscapedPath($Path) {
    Return $Path.Replace('[','`[' ).Replace(']','`]')
}

Now I want to use this function return value as input to Remove-Item function or any File-fullpath based functions for that matter, but this doesn't work:

Remove-Item GetEscapedPath $File.Fullname -WhatIf

$File is variable from loop on Get-ChildItem with Fullname selected, but still the above line doesn't print anything.

How can I achieve what I want ?

Solution

  • Use (...), the grouping operator to pass the output from a command or expression as an argument to another command:

    # Positionally binds to the -Path parameter, which interprets its argument
# as a wildcard pattern.
Remove-Item (GetEscapedPath $File.Fullname) -WhatIf

    However, in your particular case, a function is not needed to escape a file-system path in order to treat it literally (verbatim): simply use the -LiteralPath parameter of the various file-related cmdlets instead:

    Remove-Item -LiteralPath $file.FullName -WhatIf

    See this answer for more information.