Friday Fun: The Measure of a File

I've been working with PowerShell since the days of Monad and have written a lot of PowerShell scripts. Out of idle curiosity, and the need for a Friday Fun topic, I decided to see how many lines of PowerShell I have written. Or at least that are in my Scripts folder. Turns out I have 2003 ps1 files for a total of 143,375 lines of PowerShell. There's a bit of a fudge factor here has I often break single and long PowerShell expressions into multiple lines. So the number is an approximation. Here's how I figured this out.

The Measure-Object cmdlet can also be used to measure text files. You can get values like total number of words, characters and lines. All you need to do is pipe content to the cmdlet.

PS C:\> get-content C:\scripts\Measure-ScriptLines.ps1 | measure-object -Line -Word -Character

                   Lines                    Words               Characters Property
                   -----                    -----               ---------- --------
                      14                       41                      429

So to measure, let's say all of the script files I've created this year I can run a command like this:

PS C:\> dir c:\scripts\*.ps1 | where { $_.CreationTime -ge [datetime]"1/1/2014"} | get-content | measure -Line -IgnoreWhiteSpace

Lines Words                    Characters              Property           ----- -----                    ----------              --------           2860

I included the parameter to skip blank lines. But I wanted a bit more information such as the total number of files and perhaps an average so I came up with this code.

dir c:\scripts\*.ps1 -recurse -ov a | 
get-content | 
measure -Line -IgnoreWhiteSpace | 
Select Lines,
@{Name="TotalFiles";Expression={$a.count}},
@{Name="Avg";Expression={$_.lines/$a.count}}

When you use Measure-Object with the text parameters, you don't get a count property like you normally would. So I'm using one of the common parameters, OutVariable, which has an alias of OV, with Get-Childitem (the dir command). When using Out-Variable, the results are written to the pipeline and to the variable. This means I can use this variable later in my expression to create custom properties for the TotalFiles and Average.

Lines                       TotalFiles                             Avg
-----                       ----------                             ---
143375                             2003                71.5801298052921

Let's say I want the same results for all files created this year. I'll need to move my capture variable later in the expression:

dir c:\scripts\*.ps1 | where { $_.CreationTime -ge [datetime]"1/1/2014"} -ov a | 
get-content | 
measure -Line -IgnoreWhiteSpace | 
Select Lines,
@{Name="TotalFiles";Expression={$a.count}},
@{Name="Avg";Expression={$_.lines/$a.count}}

I need to make sure my count and averages are based on the filtered results.

 Lines                       TotalFiles                              Avg
 -----                       ----------                              ---
  2860                               24                 119.166666666667

Or I can include unfiltered results as well.

PS C:\> dir c:\scripts\*.ps1 -Recurse -ov All | where { $_.CreationTime -ge [datetime]"1/1/2014"} -ov Filtered | 
get-content | 
measure -Line -IgnoreWhiteSpace | 
Select Lines,
@{Name="TotalAllFiles";Expression={$All.count}},
@{Name="TotalFiltered";Expression={$Filtered.count}},
@{Name="PctTotal";Expression={($filtered.count/$All.count)*100}},
@{Name="Avg";Expression={$_.lines/$Filtered.count}}


Lines         : 2860
TotalAllFiles : 2003
TotalFiltered : 24
PctTotal      : 1.19820269595607
Avg           : 119.166666666667

I've added OutVariable to the first part of my expression. I also went ahead and used more meaningful variable names. Since I had the data, I decided to add a bit more data. Finally, even though I've primarily been using the count value for the variables, they hold full objects which leads to some intriguing possibilities:

PS C:\> dir c:\scripts\*.ps1 -Recurse -ov All | where { $_.CreationTime -ge [datetime]"1/1/2014"} -ov Filtered | 
get-content | 
measure -Line -IgnoreWhiteSpace | 
Select Lines,
@{Name="TotalAllFiles";Expression={$All.count}},
@{Name="TotalAllKB";Expression={ ($all | Measure-Object -Property length -sum).sum/1KB }},
@{Name="TotalFiltered";Expression={$Filtered.count}},
@{Name="TotalFilteredKB";Expression={ ($Filtered | Measure-Object -Property length -sum).sum/1KB }},
@{Name="PctTotal";Expression={($filtered.count/$All.count)*100}},
@{Name="AvgLines";Expression={$_.lines/$Filtered.count}}


Lines           : 2860
TotalAllFiles   : 2003
TotalAllKB      : 6865.7890625
TotalFiltered   : 24
TotalFilteredKB : 496.4453125
PctTotal        : 1.19820269595607
AvgLines        : 119.166666666667

So today's fun really covered two topics, using Measure-Object with text files and the OutVariable common parameter. Enjoy!

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