Question

I am now starting to use PowerShell and after a lot of time using the Unix shells and want to know how to check for the existence of a file or directory.

In Powershell why does Exist return false in the following expression?

PS H:\> ([System.IO.FileInfo]'C:\').Exists False 

And is there a better way to check if a file is a directory than:

PS H:\> ([System.IO.FileInfo]'C:\').Mode.StartsWith('d') True 

Answer 1

Use Test-Path instead of System.IO.FileInfo.Exists:

PS> Test-Path -Path 'C:\' True 

You can also use -PathType to test whether the location is a file or directory:

PS> Test-Path -Path 'C:\' -PathType Container True  PS> Test-Path -Path 'C:\' -PathType Leaf False 

DirectoryInfo and FileInfo also both define a PSIsContainer property:

PS> (Get-Item -Path 'C:\').PSIsContainer True  PS> (Get-Item -Path 'C:\windows\system32\notepad.exe').PSIsContainer False