7zip - powershell exclude files/folders with variable

Question

I'm trying to zip a folder but exclude multiple directories using powershell.

I got the following:

if (-not (test-path "$env:ProgramFiles\7-Zip\7z.exe")) {throw "$env:ProgramFiles\7-Zip\7z.exe needed"} 
set-alias sz "$env:ProgramFiles\7-Zip\7z.exe"  

$Source = "D:\Zip\*"
$Target = "D:\backup.7z"
$exclude = 'Customer\Images\*'

sz a -xr!'$Customer\Images\*' $Target $Source

This works fine.. But when I want the change the -xr! to -xr!'$exclude' or -xr!$exclude it stops working for some reason. Does the variable assigned above not get parsed?

Answer 1

Try this...

if (-not (Test-Path "$env:ProgramFiles\7-Zip\7z.exe")) {throw "$env:ProgramFiles\7-Zip\7z.exe needed"} 
$7ZipPath = "$env:ProgramFiles\7-Zip\7z.exe"  

$Source = "D:\Zip\*"
$Target = "D:\backup.7z"
$foldersToExclude = 'folder1', 'folder2'

$7zipParams = @('a',$Target)
@($foldersToExclude) | ForEach-Object { $7zipParams += "`"-xr!$_`"" }
$7zipParams += $Source

Write-Host ($7ZipPath+' '+$7zipParams -join ' ') # debug - show the command line
&$7ZipPath $7zipParams

We create an array of params to pass into 7zip, including the excluded folders. As we're appending the excluded folders, we prepend the folder names with the -xr! flags and wrap these in double qoutes.

The #debug line outputs the resultant command line to the console

I call 7zip slightly differently to you, by creating a string with the 7zip executable, then prepending the call to that string path with an ampersand.

This method can exclude multiple folders from the final archive, including folder\\subfolder structure.

Answer 2

Two things:

1. Use the variable inside double quotes if you want it to be expanded: sz a "-xr!$exclude" $Target $Source
2. Using the pattern Customer\\Images\\* excludes all files in the directory Images , but includes an empty directory in the resulting file. Use Customer\\Images if you don't want to include the directory (or any of its files).