How to create links in PowerShell

The purpose of this post is to remind myself how to create links in PowerShell. Nowadays (since mid-August 2016) PowerShell is cross-platform and open-source (with MIT license).

Cmdlets

Commands in PowerShell are called cmdlets. There are two of them to create links: New-HardLink for creating hard links and New-Symlink for creating symbolic links. Unfortunately, I was not able to get New-Symlink to work but see below for workaround.

Hard links can be created with New-Hardlink and work as expected.

❯ echo barbaz > .\foo.txt
❯ New-Hardlink hardfoo.txt foo.txt

Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
-a---          25/03/2023    13.04              8 hardfoo.txt
❯ cat .\hardfoo.txt
barbaz
 echo bazqux > .\hardfoo.txt
bazqux
❯ rm foo.txt
❯ cat .\hardfoo.txt
bazqux

As it is possible to see above, hardfoo.txt is a hard link, in other words just an another name for the same file. Removing foo.txt name does not affect the file itself.

As I have mentioned above, I did not manage to create a symbolic link with New-Symlink cmdlet. Let me show.

❯ echo foobar > .\foo.txt
❯ New-Symlink .\symfoo.txti .\foo.txt
❯ echo foobar > .\foo.txt
❯ New-Symlink .\symfoo.txt .\foo.txt
❯ ls symfoo.txt
Get-ChildItem: Cannot find path 'C:\Users\XXXXXX\symfoo.txt' because it does not exist.

However, I can create symbolic links with New-Item cmdlet, and they work:

❯ echo foobar > .\foo.txt
❯ New-Item -ItemType SymbolicLink -Path .\symfoo.txt -Value .\foo.txt

    Directory: C:\Users\XXXXXX

Mode                 LastWriteTime         Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
la---          25/03/2023    13.23              0 symfoo.txt -> .\foo.txt
❯ cat .\symfoo.txt
foobar
❯ echo barbaz > .\foo.txt
❯ cat .\symfoo.txt
barbaz
❯ echo bazqux > .\symfoo.txt
❯ cat .\foo.txt
bazqux
❯ rm .\foo.txt
❯ cat .\symfoo.txt
Get-Content: Could not find file 'C:\Users\XXXXXX\symfoo.txt'.

As it is possible to see above, symfoo.txt is a link to foo.txt. When the original file is deleted, the link points to nowhere.

I probably should mention that all that is happening on NTFS.

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