Create Item

Powershell uses a single cmdlet named New-Item to represent all kinds of creation logic for file system items like folder, file, symlinks...

TIP

Use ni alias for New-Item.

File

New-Item creates file without extra options by default.

New-Item -Path <file_path>
# or
New-Item <file_path>

NOTE

-Path is the first positional parameter which can be ignored.

NOTE

-Path is string[], so you can create multiple items at a same time with same options.

TIP

Use -Force flag to overwrite existing target.

Directory

New-Item <dir_path> -ItemType Directory

Powershell has another builtin function called mkdir, it's a shorthand for New-Item <dir_path> -ItemType Directory

mkdir <dir_path>

NOTE

When creating directory, New-Item ensures necessary parent directories by default, so there's no things like mkdir -p.

TIP

Use -Force flag to overwrite existing target.

Symbolic Link

New-Item <symlink_path> -Target <source> -ItemType SymbolicLink

TIP

Use -Force flag to overwrite existing target.

Ignore Wildcards

-Path translates wildcards by default, if you do need to include special characters from wildcards syntax for your new item, use -LiteralPath.

New-Item -LiteralPath 'foo*.txt' # creates a file literally named `foo*.txt`