Windows PowerShell - Input file name, output file path - windows

Question

I've just started using PowerShell and I have a task where I need to be able to have the file path displayed on screen when I enter the file name.
Is there a script that allows me to do the below ? :
Ex 1: I enter "test.txt" and I get "C:\Program Files...."
Ex 2: I enter a file name "My Documents" and I also get its path.
I have searched online on how to do this but I didn't quite find what I was looking for and all the queries/answers were too complicated for me to understand.
Can anyone help me out, please?
Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Here is a starter sample for you.
This example search only within the confine of the paths present is the Path system environment variable. It also only looks for files and do not recurse through these path.
So anything you could access directly from the command line should be available to you through it.
Now, if you want to search the whole drive, you could replace the $DefaultPaths assignment with Get-ChildItem -Path 'C:' -Recurse but doing that each time won't be super efficient.
You could do it and it will work... but it will be slow.
To search on the whole drive or whole filesystem, there are alternative methods that might work better. Some examples of what might entice:
Using a database which you have to buld & maintain to index all the files so that when you search, results are instantaneous and / or very fast
Parsing the MFT table (if using Windows / NTFS filesystem only) instead of using Get-ChildItem (This is not somehting natively doable through a simple cmdlet though) .
Relying on a third party software and interface with (For example, Void Tools Everything search engine already parse MFT and build its own database, allowing users to search instantly through a Windows NTFS filesystem. It also have its own SDK you can plug in through Powershell and retrieve what you seek instantly. The caveats is that you need the software installed first for that solution to work.)
Example: Searching through all paths defined in the Path variable
# What you are looking for. Accept wildcards characters (*)
$Filter = 'notepad.exe'
# Get the System Environment Path variable in an array
$DefaultPaths = $env:Path -split ';'
$Paths =
Foreach ($P in $DefaultPaths) {
# Search for files matching the specified filter. Ignore errors (often if the path do not exist but is sin the Path)
$MatchingFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path $P -Filter $Filter -File -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if ($MatchingFiles.count -gt 0) {
$MatchingFiles.Directory.FullName
}
}
$Paths | out-string | Write-Host -ForegroundColor Cyan
Output for Notepad.exe search using this method.
C:\Windows\system32
C:\Windows