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Remove-Item and Move-Item don't support escape characters in wildcard patterns on Unix #3725
Description
Note:
- Applies to Linux and macOS, but not to Windows
- Possibly related: Get-ChildItem: wildcard matching behavior differs between -Path and -Include parameters when using escape characters #3724
Wildcard patterns- at least in the context of Get-Item - support ` as the escape character to represent literal ` instances in a path and to escape the following metacharacters: * ? [ ]
Remove-Item and Move-Item currently do not support that, neither with -Path nor with -Include.
Steps to reproduce
# Create a file that contains a literal backtick and a literal substring that would be a valid
# sub-pattern if interpreted as a wildcard expression.
New-Item -Type File 'a`[b]'
# Match the newly created file using a wildcard expression with suitable escaping.
Remove-Item * -Include 'a```[b`]' -WhatIf
Remove-Item -Path 'a```[b`]' -WhatIf
Move-Item * -Include 'a```[b`]' /tmp -WhatIf
Move-Item -Path 'a```[b`]' /tmp -WhatIfExpected behavior
Both commands in each pair should find the target file and output information about how it would be deleted / moved.
Actual behavior
All commands unexpectedly fail to find the file:
Remove-Item : An object at the specified path /Users/jdoe/a`[b] does not exist.
...
Curiously, the error message quotes the correct literal path that it claims doesn't exist.
Move-Item's symptoms differ:
Move-Item : Cannot move item because the item at '...' does not exist.
...
Move-Item : The specified wildcard character pattern is not valid: a\[b
Curiously, all existing files in the directory (even those that don't match the pattern) are reported as non-existent.
Environment data
PowerShell Core v6.0.0-alpha (v6.0.0-alpha.18) on macOS 10.12.4
PowerShell Core v6.0.0-alpha (v6.0.0-alpha.18) on Ubuntu 16.04
Activity
iSazonov commentedon May 8, 2017
Is Move-Item affected too?
[-]Remove-Item doesn't support escape characters in wildcard patterns on Unix[/-][+]Remove-Item and Move-Item don't support escape characters in wildcard patterns on Unix[/+]mklement0 commentedon May 8, 2017
Ilya (@iSazonov): Good point; yes,
Move-Itemis affected too - I've retitled and revised the original post accordingly.microsoft-github-policy-service commentedon Nov 16, 2023
This issue has not had any activity in 6 months, if this is a bug please try to reproduce on the latest version of PowerShell and reopen a new issue and reference this issue if this is still a blocker for you.
microsoft-github-policy-service commentedon Nov 16, 2023
This issue has not had any activity in 6 months, if this is a bug please try to reproduce on the latest version of PowerShell and reopen a new issue and reference this issue if this is still a blocker for you.
microsoft-github-policy-service commentedon Nov 16, 2023
This issue has not had any activity in 6 months, if this is a bug please try to reproduce on the latest version of PowerShell and reopen a new issue and reference this issue if this is still a blocker for you.
microsoft-github-policy-service commentedon Nov 23, 2023
This issue has been marked as "No Activity" as there has been no activity for 6 months. It has been closed for housekeeping purposes.