Powershell create text file if not exist

The functionality of these two cmdlets is not explicitly to check if files exist. Take the commands below as an example. Each of the commands above returns an error. As you can see from the example below, the error message for both commands is the same. In this example, the script uses the Get-Item and Test-Path cmdlets. The logic of this script is to do the following:. After saving the script, run it in PowerShell and verify the results. The last method to learn in this article is the System.

NET class, specifically the Exists method. NET classes and methods. For example, to use Exists method in PowerShell to check if a file exists, use the code below.

The above method produces a boolean result — true or false. If the result returns true , it means that the target file exists.

Otherwise, the result returned is false when the target file does not exist. With this. NET method, you can also use ternary operations such as the example below. Instead of showing the default true or false results, you may customize the result message with a shorter implementation. One question I do have is how do you make this search through all the folders in the directory?

I tried using Get-ChildItem -Recurse but that does not seem to change anything. I changed it back and now it is good. Sorry I didn't respond, just got in to work for the week. Glad you got it working for your needs, and I did update the answer to reflect your findings for future answer seekers.

I had to alter multiple. So if you are dealing with hidden files add the -hidden and -force flag to Get-ChildItem. I also think that you also need to do this per file. Mike Wise Mike Wise Sign up or log in Sign up using Google. Sign up using Facebook. Sign up using Email and Password. The This technique is shown here:.

A better approach to dealing with the Boolean value returned value by the Test-Path cmdlet is to not use the equality operator -eq. This is the approach that was taken with the DetermineIfFileExists. The code is shown here:.

The one thing to keep in mind is the placement of the parentheses. Because you want to evaluate the return code from the Test-Path cmdlet, you need to ensure the Test-Path cmdlet runs first. To do this, it is placed inside a set of parentheses. After the Boolean return value is returned, the —not operator is evaluated.

If the file does not exist, the file will be created by using the New-Item cmdlet, which is used to create new items. The type of item it will create depends upon the Windows PowerShell provider that is used.

In this example, because you are working with the file system, you are using the FileSystem provider. The Windows PowerShell FileSystem provider is capable of creating two different types of items—a file or a directory. Because of this, you must specify a value for the —ItemType parameter. The —path parameter is used to tell the cmdlet where to create the new item.

To illustrate using UNC, first ping a remote computer. After determining that the remote computer is available, use the New-Item cmdlet to create a file.

After the file has been created, use the Get-ChildItem cmdlet to ensure that the file is present on the remote computer. The use of UNC paths is seen here:. Com [ My skills are beginner level so I don't understand all the pieces. Could you expand or detail your answer a bit more?

Which basically boils down to, "For every piece of desired content, if it's not already in the actual content, add it". There are probably ways to shorten this for brevity, but it gets the job done.

You must provide a value expression on the right-hand side of the '-' operator. At line:5 char Unexpected token 'notin' in expression or statement. At line:5 char Unexpected token 'actualContent' in expression or statement. At line:5 char Can you give us a sanitized sample what the text file looks like and what you are trying to match? I think that might help. Then I just need to add four URLs, each on a separate line. That's the only content of the file