Powershell - create directories form files in a dierectory

Question

I am trying to clean up and group files in a directory by creating subdirectories and then copying the files into the new directories.

Example:

test01.a.jpg
test01.a.txt 
test01.b.bak 
test01.b.txt 
test02.a.txt
test02.a.jpg
test02.a.bak
test03.a.txt
test03.a.bak
test03.b.txt

I wish to create subdirectories like test01, test02, test03 and ideally copy the relevant files over. All groups will have a txt file but more or less of the others.

To create the directories I have got as far as

gci -file *.txt | New-Item -ItemType directory $_.name

which doesn't work as expected.

Answer 1

If your files have names like that, you can simply split the filename on the dot and take only the first part as new folder name.

Then test if a subfolder like that already exists (if not create it) and move the file. Something like this

$sourcePath = 'D:\Test'  # put the real path to the files here

# if you want only the files with extension .txt, use filter '*.*.txt'
(Get-ChildItem -Path $sourcePath -File -Filter '*.*.*') | ForEach-Object {
    # use the first part of the file name for subdirectory name
    $destinationPath = Join-Path -Path $sourcePath -ChildPath $_.Name.Split(".")[0]
    if (!(Test-Path -Path $destinationPath -PathType Container)) {
        # if a subdirectory with that name does not already exist, create it
        $null = New-Item -Path $destinationPath -ItemType Directory
    }
    # now move the file to that (new) destination folder
    $_ | Move-Item -Destination $destinationPath
}