Powershell Compress-Archive include empty directories

Question

I need to include empty directories along with files in a zip file. I can do this manually just fine with 7-Zip but I wanted to automate it because I do this quite a lot. I recently started learning powershell so I decided to give it a go.

My problem is that Compress-Archive automatically discards empty directories. My workaround is ($Files is a parameter to the script):

$items = Get-ChildItem -Path . | Where-Object { $_.Name -in $Files }
$placeholders = @()
foreach ($item in $items) {
    if (($item | Get-ChildItem | Measure-Object).Count -eq 0 ) {
        $placeholders += (New-Item -Path "$item\.placeholder")
    }
}

and at the end of the script

foreach ($item in $placeholders) {
    $item.Delete() 
}

which works but it is not pretty as it results in placeholder files being in the final zip.

Is there a good way to compress empty directories in powershell?

EDIT whole script with version info at the bottom:

[CmdletBinding()]
param (
    # Files and folders to compress, comma separated
    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string[]]
    $Files,

    # zip file to create
    [Parameter(Mandatory)]
    [string]
    $ZipName
)

if (-not $ZipName.Contains(".zip")) {
    $ZipName += ".zip"
}

$items = Get-ChildItem -Path . | Where-Object { $_.Name -in $Files }
$placeholders = @()
foreach ($item in $items) {
    if (($item | Get-ChildItem | Measure-Object).Count -eq 0 ) {
        $placeholders += (New-Item -Path "$item\.placeholder")
    }
}

if ((Get-ChildItem -Path . | Where-Object { $_.Name -eq $ZipName } | Measure-Object).Count -ne 0) {
    Remove-Item -Path "$ZipName"
}

$items | Compress-Archive -DestinationPath $ZipName

foreach ($item in $placeholders) {
    $item.Delete() 
}

# output of Get-Host
# Name             : ConsoleHost
# Version          : 5.1.19041.610
# InstanceId       : c799930e-ea5e-4ec9-9e5d-41d949bf4ee4
# UI               : System.Management.Automation.Internal.Host.InternalHostUserInterface
# CurrentCulture   : en-GB
# CurrentUICulture : en-GB
# PrivateData      : Microsoft.PowerShell.ConsoleHost+ConsoleColorProxy
# DebuggerEnabled  : True
# IsRunspacePushed : False
# Runspace         : System.Management.Automation.Runspaces.LocalRunspace

EDIT2 very weird stuff. Tested it again and I swear it does not work for me. If I give it the names of empty directories it doesn't even create a zip file. I'm going to reinstall Windows as soon as my new ssd arrives, maybe that fixes it.

By the way I needed this for Wordpress plugin development as you have to upload the plugins in a zip file. I uploaded the archive I created with this script and it produced a very weird result. Instead of correctly uncompressing the zip as Wordpress has done every single time before what it did was something like this:

some\file\which\should\be\in\a\directory.php
weird\file\again.php
normal.php

No, those are not paths, they are filenames. On Windows I can uncompress it just fine. I am so confused.

Answer 1

Be warned:

The Compress-Archive cmdlet ignores hidden files and folders when creating or updating the archive file.

If your directory only contains hidden files it may appear to be empty (if you haven't told File Explorer to show hidden files). Then when you use Compress-Archive it will actually be empty due to that behavior.

The docs go on to say:

To ensure hidden files and folders are compressed into the archive, use the .NET API instead.

---

This appears to be fixed in 2.0.0, but at time of writing that's been stuck as a preview release since Aug 2022.