(Powershell) Loop to delete files from an FTP Location

Question

Good morning!

I have made it to the last (and rather pivotal) stage in my script, which is looping to delete files from a directory. I'm not going to pretend I'm knowledgeable at Powershell (far from it), so I'm sort-of chopping up blocks of code I find on the net, improvising and hoping it works.

I'm hoping someone can decipher what I'm trying to do here and see what I'm doing wrong!

#   Clear FTP Directory
$DelLoop=1
$server = "www.newsbase.com"
$dir = "/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/newsbasearchive/monitors/asiaelec/"
"open $server
user Canttell Youthis
binary  
cd $dir    
" +(
For ($DelLoop=1; $DelLoop -le 5; 5)
    {
        $FileList[$DelLoop] | %{ "delete ""$_""`n" }
        $DelLoop++
    })| ftp -i -in

I know that the 'Open Connection' portion works, it's just the loop. It just keeps complaining about misplaced operators, and when I fix those, it doesn't throw up any errors - but it doesn't do anything either.

I spent the best part of 4 hours researching this yesterday, and I'm hoping one of you guys can help me.

Thanks in advance!

ADDENDUM:

Here is more of the code, as requested:

#   Clear existing .htm file to avoid duplication
Get-ChildItem -path ".\" -recurse -include index.jsp | ForEach-Object {
Clear-Content "index.jsp"
}

#   Set first part of .JSP Body
$HTMLPart1="</br><tr><td colspan=9 align=center><p style=""font-family:Arial"">Here are the links to the last 3 AsiaElec PDFs:</br><ul>"

#   Recurse through directory, looking for 3 most recent .PDF files 3 times
$Directory="C:\PDFs"
$HTMLLinePrefix="<li><a style=""font-family:Arial""href="""
$HTMLLineSuffix="</a></li>"
$HTMLLine=@(1,2,3,4)
$Loop=1
$PDF=@(1,2,3,4)
Get-ChildItem -path $Directory -recurse -include *.pdf | sort-object -Property LastWriteTime -Descending | select-object -First 3 | ForEach-Object {
        $PDF[$Loop]=$_.name
        $HTMLLine[$Loop]=$HTMLLinePrefix + $_.name + """>" + $_.name + $HTMLLineSuffix
        $Loop++
    }

#   Final .JSP File Assembly
Get-Content "header.html" >> "index.jsp"
$HTMLPart1 >> "index.jsp"
$LineParse=""
$Loop2=1
For ($Loop2=1; $Loop2 -le 3; 3)
    {
        $HTMLLine[$Loop2] >> "index.jsp"
        $Loop2++
    }
Get-Content "tail.html" >> "index.jsp"

#   Prepare File List
$FileList=@(1,2,3,4,5)
$FileList[2]=$PDF[2]
$FileList[3]=$PDF[3]
$FileList[4]="index.jsp"

#   Clear FTP Directory
$DelLoop=1
$server = "www.newsbase.com"
$dir = "/usr/local/tomcat/webapps/newsbasearchive/monitors/asiaelec/"
"open $server
user derek bland1ne
binary  
cd $dir    
" +(
For ($DelLoop=1; $DelLoop -le 5; 5)
    {
        $FileList[$DelLoop] | %{ "delete ""$_""`n" }
        $DelLoop++
    })| ftp -i -in

This isn't all of it, but I believe it contains all the relevant info.

Answer 1

Your $dir path looks like you're on a unix system so this may be a little different, but all you need to do is change your final loop a little bit:

For ($DelLoop=1; $DelLoop -le 5; $DelLoop++)
{
    $FileList[$DelLoop] | % { rm $FileList[$DelLoop] }
} 

This is assuming that $FileList contains the files you want to delete and not only (what I'm guessing are dummy) numbers. I also suggest that you download the Module that @Graimer mentions and then put it in WindowsPowerShell > Modules > %ModuleFolder% > %Module.psm1% and import it from your profile.

You can then just use PS> Remove-FTPItem -Path "/myFolder" -Recurse to remove your FTP stuff. Making your life easier.

Tweaking the solution to this post may also help Upload files with FTP using PowerShell

e.g:

Using $ftp.Method = [System.Net.WebRequestMethods+Ftp]::DeleteFile to delete the file,

and $response = $ftp.GetResponse() to find out if things went smoothly.

EDIT

Wrote this function after doing a little bit of research from here http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/netfxnetcom/thread/17a3abbc-6144-433b-aadd-1f776c042bd5 and adapting the code from the Accepted Answer in the above link as well as the module @Graimer talked about.

function deleteFTPSide 
{
    Param(
        [String] $ftpUserName = "muUserName",
        [String] $ftpDomain = "ftp.place.com", # Normal domains begin with "ftp" here
        [String] $ftpPassword = "myPassword",
        [String] $ftpPort = 21, # Leave as the default FTP port
        [String] $fileToDelete = "folder.domain.com/subfolder/file.txt"
    )

    # Create the direct path to the file you want to delete
    [String] $ftpPath = "ftp://"+"$ftpUserName"+":"+"$ftpPassword@$ftpDomain"+":"+"$ftpPort/$fileToDelete"

    # create the FtpWebRequest and configure it
    $ftp = [System.Net.FtpWebRequest]::Create($ftpPath)

    $ftp.Method = [System.Net.WebRequestMethods+Ftp]::DeleteFile

    $ftp.Credentials = new-object System.Net.NetworkCredential($ftpUserName,$ftpPassword)

    $ftp.UseBinary = $true
    $ftp.UsePassive = $true

    $response = [System.Net.FtpWebResponse]$ftp.GetResponse()
    $response.Close()
}

While, admittedly, not one of the most elegant solutions written, I've tested it and it works at deleting a specified file off an FTP server.