PowerShell mklink on multiple files with regular expressions

Question

I have a bunch of folders with similar prefixes in the name, and I'd like to make symbolick links to these folders so that I can remove the prefix while respecting the original folder naming convention. Here are some example folder names:

2013.Folder1
2013.Folder2
2014.Folder1

in the folder:

C:\Users\madeupname\Documents

In linux, I'd just do

ln -s /home/madeupname/Documents/201* /home/madeupname/Documents/links/

(this code may not exactly right as I don't have a linux box handy right now)

In Windows PowerShell, I could do it manually for these 3 files:

cmd /c mklink C:\Users\madeupname\Documents\links\2013.Folder1 C:\Users\madeupname\Documents\2013.Folder1

but that is no good because the real directory has a lot of files!

I just noticed this is very similar to stackoverflow.com/questions/19754171/… but it seems like there must be a simpler, more elegant way to do this than the accepted answer. — Chad
– Chad, Commented May 8, 2014 at 14:23
When the shell interprets a '*' it's called globbing. The asterisk in that case is called wildcard, not regex. Here's a powershell glob question — cachius
– cachius, Commented Apr 28, 2022 at 23:38

CB. · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-08 14:45:30Z

0

if I understood correctly this can work for you:

$path = "C:\Users\madeupname\Documents"

dir $path -Directory | 
% { cmd /c mklink C:\Users\madeupname\Documents\links\$_.name $_.fullname /d}

answered May 8, 2014 at 14:45

CB.

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2 Comments

Chad Over a year ago

No luck. Using PowerShell ISE, I get: Get-ChildItem : A parameter cannot be found that matches parameter name 'Directory'. At line:3 char:21 + dir $path -Directory <<<< | + CategoryInfo : InvalidArgument: (:) [Get-ChildItem], ParameterBindingException + FullyQualifiedErrorId : NamedParameterNotFound,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.GetChildItemCommand

TheMadTechnician Over a year ago

The -Directory was added in v3 I think. Instead do dir $path | ?{$_.PSIsContainer} | %{cmd /s mklink c:\users\madeupname\documents\links\$_.name $_.fullname /d} Also, if this is for the current user you can make that more reliable by replacing c:\users\madeupname with $env:userprofile

Chad · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-08 15:00:27Z

0

I found a GUI to do this, but that's cheating so I won't mark this as the answer:

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html

answered May 8, 2014 at 15:00

Chad

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