PowerShell: Path Tutorial

Path parameter

Many commands have a -Path parameter.

Path parameter is a positional parameter and named parameter. That means, it can be first arg, or with -path value anywhere.

# list files of a given path
dir "c:/Program Files/"

# or
dir -Path "c:/Program Files/"

Path Value is String Type

• Path value is String type.
• Normally, quote can be omitted, but if path contains space, it must be quoted.
• Double quoted string goes thru String Expansion.
• To prevent string expansion, use single quote. (but Path Expansion is still done. Use parameter LiteralPath to prevent that.)

# use quote when path contains space
dir "c:/Program Files/"

# path value of double quoted string
# or
# no quote
# goes thru string expansion
# watch out for dollar sign in it

$xx = " Files"
dir c:/Program$xx/

# same as
dir "c:/Program Files/"

Path Expansion

Path value can contain abbrev, such as beginning ~ to mean $home, and String Wildcards such as * for any characters.

Path value is expanded by path expansion. (even for single quoted path.)

• PowerShell: Path Expansion

Default Path Value

If Path parameter is omitted, default value is current dir (except the cd command, which default to $home).

dir

# same as
dir .

# same as
dir (Get-Location)

Relative Path, Full Path

The -Path parameter accepts both full path or relative path.

cd $home

dir "Documents"
# same as
dir "$home/Documents/"

Path separator

Path separator is the backslash, but slash is also supported. They can be mixed.

All the following works the same:

• "c:/Program Files/Windows Defender/"
• "c:\Program Files\Windows Defender\"
• "c:/Program Files\Windows Defender/"

single dot, double dots

• Single dot . means the current dir.
• Double dot .. means the parent dir.

# go up one dir
cd ..

# go up two dirs
cd ../..

show current dir

Get-Location (alias gl, pwd) return the current dir.