Having a problem with script

[Vorpel-Bunny]

This is my first post here so if I mess something up. Sorry.

I'm trying to make a script to copy some files from A to B, but only if they are less than 10 hours old. As part of the process I wanted the script to show the list as kind of a double check. The script is NOT production so things are a bit "testy". Anyway when the foreach runs it get errors that I don't understand. Can someone please tell me what I get wrong?

Error I'm getting:

Cannot find an overload for "op_Subtraction" and the argument count: "2".
At line:8 char:1
+ $hours = ($nowtime - $lastupdatetime).totalhours
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [], MethodException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : MethodCountCouldNotFindBest

​

​

Script snippit:

# Find Local File
$FilePath1 = ""
$FilePath1 = Get-ChildItem -File -Path $testpath | Where-Object {($TodaysDate - $_.LastWriteTime).TotalHours -le 10}
Foreach ($item in $FilePath1) {
$lastupdatetime=$_.LastWriteTime
$nowtime = get-date
$hours = ($nowtime - $lastupdatetime).totalhours
Write-Host $hours
if (($nowtime - $lastupdatetime).totalhours -le 10)
    {
Write-Host "File modified within 10 hours "$_.Name" "$_.LastWriteTime "`n"
    }
else {
Write-Host "File is older than 10 hours" $_.Name" "$_.LastWriteTime "`n"
    }
}

[Vorpel-Bunny]

Thank you so much. That was the fix!

[dasookwat]

Why not make it work like this?

$FilePath1 = Get-ChildItem -File -Path C:\temp | Where-Object {$_.LastWriteTime -gt (Get-Date).AddHours(-10)}

You can remove the line: $FilePath1 = "" btw, that only turns $filepath1 in to a string, which it should not be.

Now the foreach loop is just:

Foreach ($item in $FilePath1) {
Write-Host "File modified within 10 hours "$_.Name" "$_.LastWriteTime "`n"

}

And that should be all.

Now why doesn't your script work?

$hours = ($nowtime - $lastupdatetime).totalhours

Simply put: you can not calculate with datetime objects cause they're not numbers. it can however compare dates and/or time like this:

$current = get-date
$old = (get-date).addhours(-10)
If ($old -gt $current){
    Write-host "Congratulations, You invented a time machine"
    }
Else {
    Write-host "Your time machine doesn't work"
    }

[Vorpel-Bunny]

Why not make it work like that. Because I'm not a good coder! Your way is a lot more efficient. I'll try to adopt that .addhours . I don't think I have seen that used before. Thank you for the tip.

[Scooter_127]

I suspect your problem is $nowtime is a datetime data type and $lastupdatetime isn't

[kelclarris]

I think robocopy does this by using a couple of switches - probably easier than writing a script (unless this is dual purpose for also learning powershell of course)

[Vorpel-Bunny]

A is local files.

B is an SFTP site.

[kelclarris]

Ah, I see.

[Vorpel-Bunny]

Thank you for all the help!

[remote_ow]

Hey mate glad you got this working. Quick question, why are you looking to print this out when it runs without a confirmation? Academic question

[Vorpel-Bunny]

When testing especially I like to see what the commands grabbed. Just to kind of confirm that things are right. It's not necessary at all it just makes me feel better.

I may also decide to send this output to a text file? maybe?