Sorting files into directories with powershell - windows

Question

I have the following problem and I would really appreciate it if I could get some help on that front. I am getting a constant flow of xml files into a folder. A XML file name can look like this. It only goes up to 1005.
1001.order-asdf1234.xml
1002.order-asdf4321.xml
I want to sort the files into uniquely named folders that are not based on the file names. A example for that would be
C:\Directory Path...\Peter (All files starting with 1001 go in there)
C:\Directory Path...\John (All files starting with 1002 go there)
How can I create a batch or a powershell script to continuously sorts files into the specified folders? Since I only have 5 folders I would like to simply specify the target folders for each and not have elaborate loops but I don't know how to do that.

Answer 1

The easiest way is to create a lookup Hashtable where you define which prefix ('1001' .. '1005') maps to which destination folder:
# create a Hasthable to map the digits to a foldername
$folderMap = #{
'1001' = 'Peter'
'1002' = 'John'
'1003' = 'Lucretia'
'1004' = 'Matilda'
'1005' = 'Henry'
}
# set source and destination paths
$rootFolder = 'X:\Where\the\files\are'
$destination = 'Y:\Where\the\files\should\go'
# loop over the files in the root path
Get-ChildItem -Path $rootFolder -Filter '*.xml' -File |
Where-Object { $_.BaseName -match '^\d{4}\.' } |
ForEach-Object {
$prefix = ($_.Name -split '\.')[0]
$targetPath = Join-Path -Path $destination -ChildPath $folderMap[$prefix]
$_ | Move-Item -Destination $targetPath -WhatIf
}
Remove the -WhatIf safety-switch if you are satisfied with the results shown on screen

Answer 2

You could use a switch statement to decide on the target folder based on the first part of the file name:
$files = Get-ChildItem path\to\folder\with\xml\files -Filter *.xml
switch($files)
{
{$_.Name -like '1001*'} {
$_ |Move-Item -Destination 'C:\path\to\Peter'
}
{$_.Name -like '1002*'} {
$_ |Move-Item -Destination 'C:\path\to\John'
}
{$_.Name -like '1003*'} {
# etc...
}
default {
Write-Warning "No matching destination folder for file '$($_.Name)'"
}
}
If you change your mind about loops, my preference would be to store the mapping in a hashtable and loop over the entries for each file:
$files = Get-ChildItem path\to\folder\with\xml\files -Filter *.xml
$targetFolders = #{
'1001' = 'C:\path\to\Peter'
'1002' = 'C:\path\to\John'
'1003' = 'C:\path\to\Paul'
'1004' = 'C:\path\to\George'
'1005' = 'C:\path\to\Ringo'
}
foreach($file in $files){
$targetFolder = $targetFolders.Keys.Where({$file.Name -like "${_}*"}, 'First')
$file |Move-Item -Destination $targetFolder
}