I was recently taking a training course and the lab guide said “create some files in c:stuff”.
Sure, I *could* use Windows Explorer or Command Prompt or even a PowerShell command to do this. I guess the easiest way would be to use Windows Explorer, select a file, copy it (Ctrl+C), then paste it multiple times (Ctrl+V [repeat until your fingers are tired]).
But hey, I’m a geek and I like to script stuff (yes, for fun). But I’m not stupid so I didn’t create a script from scratch. Stéphane van Gulick, a PowerShell MVP, has a nice script at http://powershelldistrict.com/create-files/
However, I like to tinker and can’t leave good enough alone so I forked it and added some additional functionality.
I give you… Create-RandomFiles.ps1 with the following changes
- Added a Progress indicator
- files are created with different sizes
- TotalSize defaults to MB
- added optional name prefix
- added execution statistics
- replaced fsutil.exe with New-Object byte[]
| 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 | Function Create-RandomFiles{ <# .SYNOPSIS Generates a number of dumb files for a specific size. .DESCRIPTION Generates a defined number of files until reaching a maximum size. .PARAMETER TotalSize Specify the total size you would all the files combined should use on the harddrive. This parameter accepts the following size values (KB,MB,GB,TB). MB is assumed if no designation is specified. 200KB 5MB 3GB 1TB .PARAMETER NumberOfFiles Specify a number of files that need to be created. This can be used to generate a big number of small files in order to simulate User backup specefic behaviour. .PARAMETER FilesTypes This parameter is not mandatory, but the following choices are valid to generate files with the associated extensions: Multimedia : ".avi",".midi",".mov",".mp3",".mp4",".mpeg",".mpeg2",".mpeg3",".mpg",".ogg",".ram",".rm",".wma",".wmv" Image : ".gif",".jpg",".jpeg",".png",".tif",".tiff",".bmp",".dib",".wmf",".emf",".emz",".svg",".svgz",".dwg",".dxf",".crw",".cr2",".raw",".eps",".ico",".pcx" Office : ".pdf",".doc",".docx",".xls",".xlsx",".ppt",".pptx" ".rtf",".txt",".csv",".xml",".mht",".mhtml",".htm",".html",".xps",".dot",".dotx",".docm",".dotm",".odt",".wps",".xlt",".xltx",".xlsm",".xlsb",".xltm",".xla",".ods",".pot",".potx",".pptm",".potm",".pps",".ppsx",".ppsm",".odp",".pub",".mpp",".vsd",".vsdx",".vsdm",".vdx",".vssx",".vssm",".vsx",".vstx",".vst",".vstm",".vsw",".vdw" Junk : ".tmp",".temp",".lock" Archive : ".zip",".7z",".rar",".cab",".iso",".001",".ex_" Script : ".ps1",".vbs",".vbe",".cmd",".bat",".php",".hta",".ini",".inf",".reg",".asp",".sql",".vb",".js",".css",".kix",".au3" If Filestypes parameter is not set, by default, the script will create all types of files. .PARAMETER Path Specify a path where the files should be generated. .PARAMETER NamePrefix Optional. Allows prepending text to the beginning of the generated file names so they can be easily found and sorted. .PARAMETER WhatIf Permits to launch this script in "draft" mode. This means it will only show the results without really making generating the files. .PARAMETER Verbose Allow to run the script in verbose mode for debbuging purposes. .EXAMPLE .Create-RandomFiles.ps1 -TotalSize 1GB -NumberOfFiles 123 -Path $env:Temp -FilesTypes 'Office' -NamePrefix '~' Generate in the user's temp folder 123 randomly named office files all beginning with "~" which total 1GB. .EXAMPLE .Create-RandomFiles.ps1 -TotalSize 50 -NumberOfFiles 42 -Path C:Usersadministratordocuments Generate in the adminstrator's documents folder 42 randomly named files which total 50MB. .NOTES -Author: Stéphane van Gulick -Email : Svangulick@gmail.com -Version: 1.0 -History: -Creation V0.1 : SVG -First final draft V0.5 : SVG -Corrected minor bugs V0.6 : SVG -Functionalized the script V0.8 : SVG -Simplified code V1.0 : SVG ===== Change History ===== based on http://powershelldistrict.com/create-files/ -Author: Chad Simmons -2015/12/04: added Write-Progress, files are created with different sizes, TotalSize defaults to MB, added name prefix, added execution statistics, replaced fsutil.exe with New-Object byte[], added additional filetypes .LINK http://www.PowerShellDistrict.com http://blogs.CatapultSystems.com #> [cmdletbinding()] param( [Parameter(mandatory=$true)]$NumberOfFiles, [Parameter(mandatory=$true)]$path, [Parameter(mandatory=$true)]$TotalSize, [Parameter(mandatory=$false)][validateSet("Multimedia","Image","Office","Junk","Archive","Script","all","")][String]$FilesType=$all, [Parameter(mandatory=$false)]$NamePrefix="" ) begin{ $StartTime = (get-date) $TimeSpan = New-TimeSpan -Start $StartTime -end $(Get-Date) #New-TimeSpan -seconds $(($(Get-Date)-$StartTime).TotalSeconds) $Progress=@{Activity = "Create Random Files..."; Status="Initializing..."} Write-verbose "Generating files" $AllCreatedFilles = @() function Create-FileName { [CmdletBinding(SupportsShouldProcess=$true)] param( [Parameter(mandatory=$false)][validateSet("Multimedia","Image","Office","Junk","Archive","Script","all","")][String]$FilesType=$all, [Parameter(mandatory=$false)]$NamePrefix="" ) begin { $AllExtensions = @() $MultimediaExtensions = ".avi",".midi",".mov",".mp3",".mp4",".mpeg",".mpeg2",".mpeg3",".mpg",".ogg",".ram",".rm",".wma",".wmv" $ImageExtensions = ".gif",".jpg",".jpeg",".png",".tif",".tiff",".bmp",".dib",".wmf",".emf",".emz",".svg",".svgz",".dwg",".dxf",".crw",".cr2",".raw",".eps",".ico",".pcx" $OfficeExtensions = ".pdf",".doc",".docx",".xls",".xlsx",".ppt",".pptx" $OfficeExtensions2 = ".rtf",".txt",".csv",".xml",".mht",".mhtml",".htm",".html",".xps", ` ".dot",".dotx",".docm",".dotm",".odt",".wps", ` ".xlt",".xltx",".xlsm",".xlsb",".xltm",".xla",".ods",` ".pot",".potx",".pptm",".potm",".pps",".ppsx",".ppsm",".odp", ` ".pub",".mpp",".vsd",".vsdx",".vsdm",".vdx",".vssx",".vssm",".vsx",".vstx",".vst",".vstm",".vsw",".vdw" $OfficeExtensions += $OfficeExtensions2 $JunkExtensions = ".tmp",".temp",".lock" $ArchiveExtensions = ".zip",".7z",".rar",".cab",".iso",".001",".ex_" $ScriptExtensions = ".ps1",".vbs",".vbe",".cmd",".bat",".php",".hta",".ini",".inf",".reg",".asp",".sql",".vb",".js",".css",".kix",".au3" $AllExtensions = $MultimediaExtensions + $ImageExtensions + $OfficeExtensions + $JunkExtensions + $ArchiveExtensions + $ScriptExtensions $extension = $null } process{ Write-Verbose "Creating file Name" switch ($filesType) { "Multimedia" {$extension = $MultimediaExtensions | Get-Random} "Image" {$extension = $ImageExtensions | Get-Random} "Office" {$extension = $OfficeExtensions | Get-Random } "Junk" {$extension = $JunkExtensions | Get-Random} "Archive" {$extension = $ArchiveExtensions | Get-Random} "Script" {$extension = $ScriptExtensions | Get-Random} default {$extension = $AllExtensions | Get-Random } } Get-Verb | Select-Object verb | Get-Random -Count 2 | %{$Name+= $_.verb} $FullName = $NamePrefix + $name + $extension Write-Verbose "File name created : $FullName" Write-Progress @Progress -CurrentOperation "Created file Name : $FullName" } end { return $FullName } } } #----------------Process----------------------------------------------- process { If ($TotalSize -match '^d+$') { [string]$TotalSize += "MB" } #if TotalSize isNumeric (did not contain a byte designation, assume MB $Progress.Status="Creating $NumberOfFiles files totalling $TotalSize" Write-Progress @Progress Write-Verbose "Total Size is $TotalSize" $FileSize = $TotalSize / $NumberOfFiles $FileSize = [Math]::Round($FileSize, 0) Write-Verbose "Average file size of $FileSize" $FileSizeOffset = [Math]::Round($FileSize/$NumberOfFiles, 0) Write-Verbose "file size offset of $FileSizeOffset" $FileSize = $FileSizeOffset*$NumberOfFiles/2 Write-Verbose "Beginning file size of $FileSize" while ($FileNumber -lt $NumberOfFiles) { $FileNumber++ If ($FileNumber -eq $NumberOfFiles) { $FileSize = $TotalSize - $TotalFileSize Write-Verbose "Setting last file to size $FileSize" } $TotalFileSize = $TotalFileSize + $FileSize $FileName = Create-FileName -filesType $filesType Write-Verbose "Creating : $FileName of $FileSize" $Progress.Status="Creating $NumberOfFiles files totalling $TotalSize. Run time $(New-TimeSpan -Start $StartTime -end $(Get-Date))" Write-Progress @Progress -CurrentOperation "Creating file $FileNumber of $NumberOfFiles : $FileName is $FileSize bytes." -PercentComplete ($FileNumber/$NumberOfFiles*100) $FullPath = Join-Path $path -ChildPath $FileName # Write-Verbose "Generating file : $FullPath of $Filesize" try{ #fsutil.exe file createnew $FullPath $FileSize | Out-Null $buffer=New-Object byte[] $FileSize #http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2010/06/09/hey-scripting-guy-how-can-i-use-windows-powershell-2-0-to-create-a-text-file-of-a-specific-size.aspx $fi=[io.file]::Create($FullPath) $fi.Write($buffer,0,$buffer.length) $fi.Close() } catch{ $_ } $FileCreated = "" $Properties = @{'FullPath'=$FullPath;'Size'=$FileSize} $FileCreated = New-Object -TypeName psobject -Property $properties $AllCreatedFilles += $FileCreated Write-verbose "$($AllCreatedFilles) created $($FileCreated)" Write-Progress @Progress -CurrentOperation "Creating file $FileNumber of $NumberofFiles : $FileName is $FileSize bytes. Done." -PercentComplete ($FileNumber/$NumberOfFiles*100) $FileSize = ([Math]::Round($FileSize, 0)) + $FileSizeOffset } } end{ Write-Output $AllCreatedFilles Write-Output "Start time: $StartTime" Write-Output "Execution time: $(New-TimeSpan -Start $StartTime -end $(Get-Date))" #http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2013/03/15/use-powershell-and-conditional-formatting-to-format-time-spans.aspx } } |
Enjoy!