Remove-Item not deleting files - windows

Question

This is my PowerShell script:
$dir = ([io.fileinfo]$MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition).DirectoryName
Get-ChildItem -Path .\ -Filter *.png -Recurse -File | Where-Object {$_.Name -match ".+[\]]+.png"} | ForEach-Object {
echo $_.FullName $(Test-Path $_.FullName)
Remove-Item $_
echo $_.FullName $(Test-Path $_.FullName)
}
The echos give actual filenames, but Test-Path resolves to False and nothing is ever deleted.

Answer 1

Because your paths contain ] which is interpreted by the -Path parameter (which you're using implicitly) as part of a pattern.
You should use the -LiteralPath parameter instead:
$dir = ([io.fileinfo]$MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition).DirectoryName
Get-ChildItem -Path .\ -Filter *.png -Recurse -File | Where-Object {$_.Name -match ".+[\]]+.png"} | ForEach-Object {
echo $_.FullName $(Test-Path -LiteralPath $_.FullName)
Remove-Item -LiteralPath $_
echo $_.FullName $(Test-Path -LiteralPath $_.FullName)
}
Note that if you instead piped in the original object from Get-ChildItem, it would automatically bind to -LiteralPath so that's something to consider:
$dir = ([io.fileinfo]$MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition).DirectoryName
Get-ChildItem -Path .\ -Filter *.png -Recurse -File | Where-Object {$_.Name -match ".+[\]]+.png"} | ForEach-Object {
echo $_.FullName $($_ | Test-Path)
$_ | Remove-Item
echo $_.FullName $($_ | Test-Path)
}
To prove this:
$dir = ([io.fileinfo]$MyInvocation.MyCommand.Definition).DirectoryName
$fileSample = Get-ChildItem -Path .\ -Filter *.png -Recurse -File |
Where-Object {$_.Name -match ".+[\]]+.png"} |
Select-Object -First 1
Trace-Command -Name ParameterBinding -Expression {
$fileSample.FullName | Test-Path
} -PSHost # $fileSample.FullName is a string, still binds to Path
Trace-Command -Name ParameterBinding -Expression {
$fileSample | Test-Path
} -PSHost # binds to LiteralPath