Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Find centralized, trusted content and collaborate around the technologies you use most.

Teams

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

I have a folder with three files and want the equivalent of dir /s /b in PowerShell. How do I do that?

For example, if the folder name is temp3 and it contains three text files - a.txt . b.txt , and c.txt , doing

C:\temp3> dir /s /b
gives me
C:\temp3\a.txt
C:\temp3\b.txt
C:\temp3\c.txt
How do I get the same result in PowerShell?
                dir -s -n   -- It's undocumented that -s is also recursive. -n gives just the name, but without the drive letter (if you can live with that)
– Brain2000
                Dec 1, 2018 at 18:52
                Welcome to the SO freakshow;) I first had to find out what are these two flags. So /s means list files the recursive way and /b is just the files.
– Timo
                Oct 20, 2020 at 7:10
If you are using Powershell as a shell (and not as a script processor), you can simply type:
cmd /r dir /s /b
The /r flag tells cmd.exe to run the command and exit. In other words, you'll end at the same execution context.
For many commands, cmd /r is better than dealing with Powershell object-oriented architecture.
                I find great irony that the shortest way to write the command in powershell is just to shell-back to old cmd.exe.  PowerShell is a bloated, hulking mess.  DOS, for all its failings, is efficient.
– abelenky
                Sep 29, 2017 at 16:27
                @abelenky gci -r | % FullName seems pretty short and is arguably easier to remember than dir flags
– Felix Dombek
                Nov 1, 2017 at 2:42
                I've never seen /R and couldn't find in the option list of cmd until I saw this Also, for compatibility reasons, /X is the same as /E:ON, /Y is the same as /E:OFF and /R is the same as /C.  Any other switches are ignored. So it's better to use /C and /K
– phuclv
                Aug 7, 2018 at 8:07
                There is -NO- reason to use cmd.exe in PowerShell for this. (Get-ChildItem -Recurse).FullName.
– lit
                Mar 29, 2021 at 21:03
Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName
gci -r | select -exp FullName
Get-ChildItem -Recurse | ForEach-Object { $_.FullName }
gci -r | % { $_.FullName }
gci -r | % FullName    # In recent PowerShell versions
(The long version is the first one and the one shortened using aliases and short parameter names is the second, if it's not obvious. In scripts I'd suggest using always the long version since it's much less likely to clash somewhere.)
Re-reading your question, if all you want to accomplish with dir /s /b is to output the full paths of the files in the current directory, then you can drop the -Recurse parameter here. 
My advice to you, though: Don't use strings when you can help it. If you want to pass around files, then just take the FileInfo object you get from Get-ChildItem. The cmdlets know what to do with it. Using strings for things where objects work better just gets you into weird problems.
                @Johannes: it does work.  You using v2 final?  See blogs.msdn.com/powershell/archive/2009/09/14/…
– Richard Berg
                Sep 28, 2009 at 21:32
                Hm, no, to my shame I looked it up in v1 (I was at the only machine near me that still has v1). And I even read that blog post but didn't remember it.
– Joey
                Sep 29, 2009 at 6:57
                You might also want to filter as well      Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Select-Object -ExpandProperty FullName | Where-Object { $_ -like "*.log" }
– aolszowka
                Aug 20, 2015 at 19:19
                @aolszowka: It's faster to filter in Get-ChildItem, e.g. with -Filter *.log. Besides, that was not part of the question.
– Joey
                Aug 21, 2015 at 8:31
A variation of Bob answer is to use a pipe for realtime output (having a better feedback in large directories):
dir -r | % FullName
Adding onto Joey's answer.  Starting in PowerShell 3.0, you can use the new Foreach-Object shorthand to get the FullName property.
Get-ChildItem -Recurse | Foreach-Object FullName
gci -r |% FullName
The difference is that you don't need to use curly braces ({}) or the $_ variable if all you need is a property.
Execute this once in your powershell shell, to enable a dirsb *.log command:
function global:dirsb {
    param ([Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string]$fileFilter)
    gci -r -filter $fileFilter | % fullname
or add it to your profile: PS> notepad $profile
If you just want to permanently replace Powershell's dir alias (Get-ChildItem) with a call to cmd dir, for all future powershell windows you're going to open just do the following:
notepad $profile (from powershell window)
when file opens, insert the following rows and save:
Remove-Item alias:\dir
function dir($1, $2, $3, $4) {cmd /r dir $1 $2 $3 $4}
In PowerShell, the command-line to find files is "Get-ChildItem" that have aliases (gci,ls,dir).
In the "dir -?", you can find the url explanation : Get-ChildItem
Examples of commands:
dir *.txt -s | select name,length
ls *.txt -s | select fullname
if you are working interactively with PowerShell shell instead of writing a script, you can just shell-back to old cmd.exe by typing cmd and enter. then you can run dir /s /b as old times.
Pay attention to the command line prompt to distinguish if you are in PS or CMD.
        
Thanks for contributing an answer to Stack Overflow!
Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.