Learn Windows PowerShell in a Month of Lunches

Chapter 28. PowerShell cheat sheet

This is my opportunity to assemble a lot of the little gotchas into a single place. If you’re ever having trouble remembering what something is or does, flip to this chapter first.

28.1. Punctuation

There’s no doubt that PowerShell is full of punctuation, and much of it has a different meaning in the help files than it does in the shell itself. Here’s what it all means within the shell:

• ` (backtick)—This is PowerShell’s escape character. It removes the special meaning of any character that follows it. For example, a space is normally a separator, which is why cd c:\Program Files generates an error. Escaping the space, cd c:\Program` Files, removes that special meaning and forces the space to be treated ...