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In this post, we’ll look at numerous ways to work with paths. All of these commands work cross-platform.
Join Paths
There are a couple ways to join paths.
Join-Path
You can use Join-Path to join directories or files and directories.
Join-Path 'C:\Users' 'adamr'
Path.Combine
You can use [IO.Path]::Combine to combine more than two path segments.
[IO.Path]::Combine("C:", "Users", "adamr", "Desktop")
Split Paths
You can split paths to get the parent or leaf path.
Parent Path
Split-Path "C:\users\adamr\desktop"
# C:\users\adamr
Leaf Path
Split-Path "C:\users\adamr\desktop" -Leaf
# desktop
Exists
Check if a file or directory exists.
Test-Path
Test-Path C:\users\adamr
IO.Directory
[IO.Directory]::Exists('C:\users\adamr')
IO.File
"Note" | Out-File C:\users\adamr\desktop\note.txt
[IO.File]::Exists('C:\users\adamr\desktop\note.txt')
File Extensions
You can use IO.Path and IO.FileInfo to get file extensions.
IO.FileInfo
"Note" | Out-File C:\users\adamr\desktop\note.txt
(Get-Item C:\users\adamr\desktop\note.txt).Extension
# .txt
IO.Path
[IO.Path]::GetExtension('C:\users\adamr\desktop\note.txt')
# .txt
Known Paths
You can use the [Environment] class to get known paths.
[Environment]::GetFolderPath('ProgramFiles')
# C:\Program Files
[Environment]::GetFolderPath('ApplicationData')
# C:\Users\adamr\AppData\Roaming
$CommonAdminTools = [Environment+SpecialFolder]::CommonAdminTools
[Environment]::GetFolderPath($CommonAdminTools)
# C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Administrative Tools
[Enum]::GetValues([Environment+SpecialFolder])
# List of possible values
You can also use environment variables.
$Env:AppData
# C:\Users\adamr\AppData\Roaming
Get-ChildItem Env:\
Temporary Files
You can use [IO.Path] to get temporary file names and the temporary directory.
IO.Path
[IO.Path]::GetTempFileName()
# C:\Users\adamr\AppData\Local\Temp\tmpAFD8.tmp
[IO.Path]::GetTempPath()
# C:\Users\adamr\AppData\Local\Temp\
System Path Information
Use [IO.Path] to get information about the current system paths.
[IO.Path]::DirectorySeparatorChar
# \
[IO.Path]::PathSeparator
# ;
[IO.Path]::AltDirectorySeparatorChar
# /
[IO.Path]::InvalidPathChars
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