Question

What should I use to accomplish the task desribed below?

• CMD.exe?
• PowerShell?
• Windows Script Host with VBScript or JScript?

Task:

1. transverse into every sub-folder of a folder
2. if the subfolder has a folder name XXX, invoke certain commands

Answer 1

If you decide to go PowerShell, which is what I would recommend, this task is pretty simple:

PS> Get-ChildItem <path> -r | Where {$_.PSIsContainer -and $_ -match '<regex>'} |
    Foreach { <do something with each DirectoryInfo object stored in $_> }

Short version using aliases is (note this version deletes the specified dirs from the current dir recursively):

PS> dir . -r | ?{$_.PSIsContainer -and $_ -match 'Backup'} | Remove-Item -v -wh

This version shows you which dirs it would delete without actually deleting them. Remove the -wh (whatif) to have it actually delete the folders and tell you which ones it deleted. This is the “production” aspect of PowerShell. You can use -WhatIf (or -wh) on most cmdlets that are destructive to see what the command “would” do without actually performing the destructive operation. This is very handy when you want to kill processes based on a wildcard e.g.:

PS> Get-Process *host | Stop-Process -WhatIf

Another option is to use -Confirm and it will ask you for each process and you can tell it yes, no, yes to all, no to all. From the production point of view, I think PowerShell has a pretty clear advantage over some of the other options presented here. I’m just sayin’. 🙂