Get-ChildItem doesnt find file when using data parameter

Your value is not cast as a date, also the date time is for last write is 01/01/2014 01:01 AM.

You can simply use -like and wildcard it.

$latest = (Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla Server\Logs" -Filter *.log | ? {$_.LastWriteTime -like "*2/15/2014*"})

It's very unlikely that you have any files with a LastWriteTime that is exactly equal to "2/15/2014".  The timestamp has greater precision than that, and you would have to have an exact match to get a result.  You either need to use other comparison operators (-lt, -ge, etc.), or change your approach.  For example, if you're trying to find files that were last written to on a specific day, you can filter by a range spanning 24 hours (i.e. ? {$_.LastWriteTime -ge "2/15/2014 00:00:00" -and $_.LastWriteTime -lt "2/16/2014 00:00:00"}), or you could extract just the date from the LastWriteTime property (which is a datetime type) and base your comparison off that.

My intention was to just compare the date portion of the LastWriteTime, so that's probably why Subsun's suggestion did not work and footech and begraig's did.

Couple of questions, it makes sense that my comparison did not work as there is more to the LastWriteTime than just a date.  How can I get a definition of the fields in something like LastWriteTime so I don't waste so much time trying things that will never work.

How do I get just the date value in LastWriteTime, I just want access to the log file written the previous days.

Thanks

In my code $_.lastwritetime.tostring("MM/dd/yyyy")  actually remove the time portion of the lastwritetime values.. ie, '2/13/2014  12:27 AM, will be converted to '02/13/2014'. So '02/13/2014' wont be equal to '2/13/2014'.. :-)

$_.lastwritetime.tostring("M/dd/yyyy") would have worked for you..

To compare only date value you can try the following.. But when you use -eq operator, only if there is a exact math then you get an output..

 ? {$_.lastwritetime.tostring("dd")  -eq "15"}

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You can find more examples from following article..
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692801.aspx

Also if your intention is to get the newest log file then you can try..

$latest = Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla Server\Logs" -Filter *.log | sort lastwritetime -Descending | Select -First 1

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You should stay with native dates, and not convert them to strings, for comparing or calculating, so I wouldn't follow the .ToString approach. It is better to have something like

$date = get-date '2/15/2014'
$latest = Get-ChildItem -Path "C:\Program Files (x86)\FileZilla Server\Logs" -Filter *.log | ? {$_.LastWriteTime.Date -eq $date}

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if you want to have a file of exactly one day. For the "latest", the last line of Subsun is spot on.

I currently have the code suggested by subsun but the report runs the following  morning so  I need the previous days and the directory has numerous log files.  That's what got me started on the date parameter

Thx

This is what I ended up with
$latest = Get-ChildItem -Path $FilezillaDir -Filter *.log | ? { $_.LastWriteTime.toString("MM/dd/yyyy") -eq (Get-Date).AddDays(-1).toString("MM/dd/yyyy")}

I also found out that if you use mm instead of MM you get a really weird number for the month

Thanks for the help

If you use mm then it is considered as minutes.. You can refer the article which I posted in my last comment.

Again - you should not compain the string representations, but the .Date values. IN particular if you are checking for later or earlier or between a date (range).