{"id":8241,"date":"2007-03-21T23:08:57","date_gmt":"2007-03-21T23:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/powershell\/2007\/03\/21\/test-path-we-goofed\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T13:16:47","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T20:16:47","slug":"test-path-we-goofed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/test-path-we-goofed\/","title":{"rendered":"Test-Path: We Goofed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Test-Path: We Goofed!
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(also known as a documentation errata\u2026)\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Test-Path is a very handy little cmdlet. You submit a path and it tells you (TRUE\/FALSE) whether the elements of the path exist on the computer. You can use it to determine whether particular files or folders are present (or missing) or to look for a registry key that indicates that a program is installed, among so many other uses.\n<\/span><\/p>\n

My favorite Test-Path command reminds me when I’ve forgotten to copy my Windows PowerShell profile to one of my test machines (test-path $profile).\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Test-Path is so good that there was no need to exaggerate its abilities in the docs, but we did. The following false<\/strong> statement appears in the description of the Leaf value of the PathType parameter:\n<\/span><\/p>\n

“An element that does not contain other elements, such as a file or registry entry<\/strong>.”\n<\/span><\/p>\n

That’s just not true. File, yes; registry entry, no.\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Test-Path can detect registry keys<\/em> (the containers), but it cannot detect registry entries<\/em> (sometimes called “values”) or the data in an entry. If you try, it always returns FALSE.\n<\/span><\/p>\n


<\/span>‘ Testing a registry key
C:\\PS> test-path HKLM:\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\PowerShell\\1\\ShellIds\\Microsoft.PowerShell
True
‘ Testing a registry entry
C:\\PS> test-path HKLM:\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\PowerShell\\1\\ShellIds\\Microsoft.PowerShell\\ExecutionPolicy
False<\/p>\n

‘ Finding the registry entry
C:\\PS> get-itemproperty -name ExecutionPolicy -path HKLM:\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\PowerShell\\1\\ShellIds\\Microsoft.PowerShell<\/p>\n

PSPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\PowerShell\\1\\ShellIds\\Micro
soft.PowerShell
PSParentPath : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\\Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SOFTWARE\\Microsoft\\PowerShell\\1\\ShellIds
PSChildName : Microsoft.PowerShell
PSDrive : HKLM
PSProvider : Microsoft.PowerShell.Core\\Registry
ExecutionPolicy : RemoteSigned
<\/strong><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(You’re using TAB completion<\/a> on these paths, right?)\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I’ve corrected the docs and added an example demonstrating this limitation. You’ll see it in the next release of Windows PowerShell.\n<\/span><\/p>\n

I’m really grateful to the kind user who reported this error. If you find an error (or any other problem) with the docs, please report it using the instructions HERE<\/a> First, I’ll feel really contrite, and then I’ll fix it, but I’ll be eternally grateful.\n<\/span><\/p>\n

June Blender [MSFT]
Senior Programming Writer
Windows PowerShell<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Test-Path: We Goofed!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(also known as a documentation errata\u2026) Test-Path is a very handy little cmdlet. You submit a path and it tells you (TRUE\/FALSE) whether the elements of the path exist on the computer. You can use it to determine whether particular files or folders are present (or missing) or to look for a registry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":13641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Test-Path: We Goofed!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(also known as a documentation errata\u2026) Test-Path is a very handy little cmdlet. You submit a path and it tells you (TRUE\/FALSE) whether the elements of the path exist on the computer. You can use it to determine whether particular files or folders are present (or missing) or to look for a registry […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}