Creating a Test File

Oct 03, 2023

I needed a quick way to create a test file of various sizes and filenames. This was handy when needing to create test files for a certain file manipulation script and didn't want to use real files in the process, or have files of various sizes. Today, I'd like to share this snippet wtih you.

function Create-TestFile {

  [CmdletBinding()]

    param(
    # Default the current directory as the start path
    $filePath = [IO.Directory]::GetCurrentDirectory(),

    # Default a random file name
    $fileName = [System.IO.Path]::GetRandomFileName(),

    # Default is 1MB
    [int64]$fileSize = 1MB
  )

  # Build file path
  $fullPath = Join-Path -Path $filePath -ChildPath $fileName

  Write-Verbose "File Path: $($filePath)"
  write-Verbose "File Name: $($fileName)"
  Write-Verbose "File Size: $($fileSize)"
  Write-Verbose "File Full Path: $($fullPath)"
  
  # Create temp file
  try{
    $tempFile = new-object System.IO.FileStream "$fullPath", Create, ReadWrite
    $tempFile.SetLength($fileSize)
    $tempFile.Close()
    
    Write-Output "Created the following temp file:"
    Get-ChildItem $fullpath | Select-Object FullName,DirectoryName,Name,Length,CreationTime
  }catch{
	  $_
  }
}

What is great about this is the ability to set the filepath, filename, and the filesize. To create a file just run the following

# Create a file with a random name in the C:\TEMP folder that is 1 GB in size.

Create-TestFile -filePath "C:\TEMP" -fileSize 1000MB

Created the following temp file:


FullName      : C:\TEMP\yeu0hhbb.iw4
DirectoryName : C:\TEMP
Name          : yeu0hhbb.iw4
Length        : 1048576000
CreationTime  : 10/2/2023 8:41:12 PM

Download the full code on my snippets.

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Creating a Test File

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