Professional Windows® PowerShell

9.8. The new-item Cmdlet

The new-item cmdlet allows you to create a new item in a namespace. In addition to the common parameters, the new-item cmdlet supports the following parameters:

• path — Specifies the path to the new item

• name — Specifies the name of the new item

• itemtype — Specifies the type of the new item (varies by provider)

• value — Specifies, if appropriate, a value for the new item

• force — Allowing for security, may override other constraints

• credential — Specifies a credential for the action

• whatif — Shows the user the potential result, but no change is made

• confirm — Prompts the user to confirm whether or not a new item or items should be created

To use the new-item cmdlet to create a new text file, C:\Test2.txt, follow these steps:

First, check the text file content of the C:\directory:

get-childitem -path C:\T*.txt

Next, use new-item to create a new item C:\Test2.txt and specify that it is a file:

new-item -path C:\Test2.txt -type file

Then confirm that a new file has been added:

get-childitem -path C:\T*.txt

Figure 9-24 shows the before and after results.

To add a new folder named C:\TestFolder, use this command:

new-item -path C:\TestFolder -type directory

Figure 9.24. Figure 9-24