Slight modification to powershell command

Question

This powershell command works perfectly to copy and extract a zip file across two directories:

$shell = New-Object -COM Shell.Application
$target = $shell.NameSpace('D:\destination\')
$zip = $shell.NameSpace('D:\source\version_*.zip')
$target.CopyHere($zip.Items(), 16)

However I am struggling with a modification to make it select only the latest zip file from the source.

What defines "latest"? Is that the modified date on the file, ferinstance? — gvee, Nov 08 '18 at 17:04
Yes, sorry. The newest zip file in the directory, so mod date would be perfect, or creation date of course. — mayersdesign, Nov 08 '18 at 17:05
I'm sorry I don't know how to determine that! I am googling how to find out :) — mayersdesign, Nov 08 '18 at 17:10
In the `Related` sidebar, it should be the first tagged question. — Maximilian Burszley, Nov 08 '18 at 17:10
Link added inline as what's top of the "Related" section is subject to change: [Determine installed PowerShell version](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1825585/determine-installed-powershell-version?rq=1) — gvee, Nov 08 '18 at 17:14

gvee · Accepted Answer · 2018-11-08T17:21:56.680

2

Get the zip file with the most recent modification date in a given directory:

$source = "C:\temp"
$destination = "C:\temp\output"

$zipFile = Get-ChildItem -Path $source -Filter "*.zip" |
               Sort-Object LastWriteTime -Descending |
               Select-Object -First 1

Expand-Archive -Path $zipFile.FullName -DestinationPath $destination

This works by searching for all zip files, sorting them by the modified date descending and then grabbing the "first" one (according to the defined sort order).

I've also used the Expand-Archive command to extract the zip to a specified destination. If you need to copy the zip then that's easy enough using the Copy-Item cmdlet first.

As some commenters have pointed out: Expand-Archive was introduced in version 5 of PowerShell.

However the logic of getting the "latest" file is unchanged and can easily be plumbed in to your existing script:

$zip = $shell.NameSpace($zipFile.FullName)

edited Nov 08 '18 at 17:21

answered Nov 08 '18 at 17:09

gvee

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`Expand-Archive` was not introduced until v5. – Maximilian Burszley Nov 08 '18 at 17:18
`Expand-Archive` #requires -Version 5.0 and `-recurse` wasn't in OPs. question. – Nov 08 '18 at 17:19
1

This worked perfectly for my requirements thanks very much. I had not specified that I wanted to overwrite the destination, my bad, so I added a `-Force` flag on the Expand. Thanks again. – mayersdesign Nov 08 '18 at 17:21
1

Also updated answer to handle earlier versions of PowerShell `;-)` – gvee Nov 08 '18 at 17:23

Slight modification to powershell command

1 Answers1