How can I correctly use a variable for the destination parameter of Copy-Item in Powershell?

Question

I'm trying to copy a file in powershell and put a datestamp at the same time. This

 $localfiles = @(Get-ChildItem -File $PSScriptRoot)
  Foreach ($i in $localfiles)
    {
        $date = Get-Date
        #write-host $i
        if (!(Test-Path @("Z:\Desktop\" + $i))) 
            {   
                Copy-Item $i "Z:\Desktop\"
                #Add-Content backuplog.txt "[" Get-Date "]" " initalized file " $i
                Write-Host "[$date] Uploaded Z:\Desktop\"$i
            } else {        
                $newpath = @("Z:\Desktop\[$date]" + "$i")
                Copy-Item $i -Destination "$newpath"
                #Write-Host "incremented $newname"
                #Add-Content backuplog.txt "[" Get-Date "]" " incremented file " $i
            } 
    }

Returns

 The given path's format is not supported.

The write-host returns

[01/11/2015 12:33:55] Uploaded Z:\Desktop\ System.Object[]

I attempted a number of typecasts (.ToString), none of them worked. Any hints?

Answer 1

You seem to be casting everything to array by using @(), which you don't need to do. What about this?

$localfiles = Get-ChildItem -File $PSScriptRoot
foreach ($i in $localfiles)
{
    $date = Get-Date -Format "yyyyMMddHHmmss"
    #write-host $i
    if (!(Test-Path (Join-Path "z:\Desktop" $i.Name))) 
    {   
        Copy-Item $i.FullName "z:\Desktop"
        #Add-Content backuplog.txt "[" Get-Date "]" " initialized file " $i
        Write-Host "[$date] Uploaded z:\Desktop\$($i.Name)"
    } else {        
        $newpath = Join-Path "z:\Desktop" "$date-$($i.Name)"
        Copy-Item $i.FullName $newpath
        #Write-Host "incremented $newname"
        #Add-Content backuplog.txt "[" Get-Date "]" " incremented file " $i
    } 
}

I've added a format to the date so that there are no special characters, and used Join-Path to merge the paths. Get-ChildItem returns file objects, which have the name, fullname and basename properties that you can use.