Looking for a simple way to test if folder is empty vs inaccessible/access denied

Question

Testing if a folder is empty is pretty simple and has been discussed many times. Mostly using test-path or get-childitem Example: Powershell test if folder empty

I'm working on a script for auditing and correcting file NTFS permissions on SMB shares in my enterprise environment.

I've run into something that would at first appear simple but I'm not able to find a simple solution. I'm wondering if there is a cmdlet that would help. That is, differentiating between if a given folder is empty or I don't have access to it.

The problem is all the solutions that I see assume that you have access to the folder.

I was thinking that I was going to have to write a greasy function to do multiple tests then catching and testing error codes or something. But I thought I would ask the smart coders here at Stack Overflow before going down that rabbithole.

Is there a more elegant way to test this? A Test-MyAccess cmdlet or something?

Test-Path returns the same results for empty folders and folders with no access. Get-childitem returns null/empty for empty folders and folders with no access. Except a no access folder has an error.

PS H:\PowerShell\NTFS> Test-Path $EmptyFolder
True

PS H:\PowerShell\NTFS> Test-Path $EmptyFolder\*
False

PS H:\PowerShell\NTFS> Test-Path $NoAccessFolder
True

PS H:\PowerShell\NTFS> Test-Path $NoAccessFolder\*
False

PS H:\PowerShell\NTFS> Get-ChildItem -Path $EmptyFolder

PS H:\PowerShell\NTFS> Get-ChildItem -Path $NoAccessFolder
Get-ChildItem : The specified network name is no longer available.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-ChildItem -Path $NoAccessFolder
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ReadError: (\\server.domain....\Sufolder1\Sub3:String) [Get-ChildItem], IOException
......

you could wrap it in a try/catch. that way the `$_` in the catch part would have your error. OR you could check the `$?` automatic variable for "last operation success/fail status. OR you could look at the $Error automatic variable for the most recent error. — Lee_Dailey, May 01 '19 at 15:50
@Lee_Dailey Something like that was my go-to method but seemed like maybe I was probably re-inventing something that already existed. — RoscoeT, May 01 '19 at 15:58
from what i can tell, the 3 methods listed are all in use ... [*grin*] pick the one that fits your way of thinking about it. — Lee_Dailey, May 01 '19 at 16:53

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered May 02 '19 at 13:06

Thanks to @Lee_Dailey I seem to have been going down the right track to begin with. It looks like the way is to check Get-ChildItem for errors.

Seems like there should be a cmdlet to do this but I guess I'll write a function. Something like this I imagine.

Function Get-FolderProperties ($Path){
    $ErrOut = $Null
    $Folder = Get-ChildItem -Path $Path -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue -ErrorVariable ErrOut
    If($ErrOut) { 
    # There was an error accessing $path. Do something with $ErrOut

    }

}

Looking for a simple way to test if folder is empty vs inaccessible/access denied

1 Answers1