PowerShell script to automate the search of DLL files

Question

I often write different applications in C++ using different libraries, and sometimes it takes a lot of time to find where are the *.dll files to distribute. I use Dependency Walker but it still takes a lot of time to look in the GUI. I wrote a PowerShell script that will find all used libraries and do something with them. Please review my code.

Param
(
 [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=0)]
 [ValidateScript({Test-Path $_ -PathType Leaf})]
 [String]$Path,
 [Parameter()]
 [ValidateScript({Test-Path $_ -PathType Container})]
 [String[]]$Exclude
)
function likeAnyOf($obj,$array)
{
 foreach($item in $array) 
 { 
 if($obj -like $item) 
 {
 return $item
 } 
 }
 return $null
}
Set-StrictMode -Version Latest
$systemPath = [System.Environment]::SystemDirectory
$tempName = [System.IO.Path]::GetTempFileName() # generate a temporary filename
Start-Process depends.exe -ArgumentList '/c','/f:1',"/oc:$tempName",$Path -Wait -NoNewWindow # wait until it writes all the data
$modules = Import-Csv $tempName -Encoding Default | Select-Object -Property Module -Unique # read the output of depends.exe and select all unique DLL paths
Remove-Item -Path $tempName -Force # delete the temporary file
$dllsToCopy = @{}
foreach($module in $modules)
{
 $modulePath = $module.Module
 $moduleParent = Split-Path $modulePath -Parent
 $moduleName = Split-Path $modulePath -Leaf
 if( $moduleParent -like $systemPath )
 {
 Write-Verbose "Skipped $moduleName as a system module ($moduleParent)"
 continue
 }
 $excluded = likeAnyOf $moduleParent (Resolve-Path $Exclude)
 if($excluded -ne $null)
 {
 Write-Host "Skipped $moduleName as explicitly excluded ($excluded)"
 continue
 }
 $exists = Test-Path $modulePath -PathType Leaf
 if($exists)
 {
 $dllsToCopy.Add($moduleName, $modulePath)
 Write-Host "Added $moduleName found at $moduleParent"
 }
 else
 {
 Write-Error "Couldn't find $moduleName"
 }
}

Answer 1

You can replace all this:

function likeAnyOf($obj,$array)
{
 foreach($item in $array) 
 { 
 if($obj -like $item) 
 {
 return $item
 } 
 }
 return $null
}
# ...
$excluded = likeAnyOf $moduleParent (Resolve-Path $Exclude)

With this:

$excluded = Resolve-Path $Exclude | ? { $moduleParent -like $_ }

The question mark (?) is an alias for Where-Object, so read up on that for an explanation.

Instead of this:

if ($excluded -ne $null)
{
 # ...
}

you can do this:

if ($excluded)
{
 # ...
}

It's just a little bit easier to read.