Question

I am using the following command to copy files from a network share to my local hard drive based on a CSV file.

import-csv C:\TEST\test.csv | foreach {copy-item -path $_.npath -destination 'C:\TEST\'}

The next step would be to then use a different CSV file to rename these files based on their current file name.

Is there a command that will allow me to copy and item and rename it as well?

Answer 1

If you have a CSV containing two columns, oldfilepath and newfilename, then you can use the following.

Import-Csv C:\test.csv | % { Copy-Item -Path $_.oldfilepath -Destination "C:\TEST\$($_.newfilename)" }

Notice how the $_.newfilename is encapsulated inside a $(). That’s because $_.newfilename is an expression (since we are getting a property out of the variable), and not a variable. $() tells PowerShell to solve the expression before using it in the string. If we don’t use it, it would have used the whole csv-object for that row($_) as a string and returned an error.