symlink - Find out whether a file is a symbolic link in PowerShell

Question

I am having a PowerShell script which is walking a directory tree, and sometimes I have auxiliary files hardlinked there which should not be processed. Is there an easy way of finding out whether a file (that is, System.IO.FileInfo) is a hard link or not?

If not, would it be easier with symbolic links (symlinks)?

Answer 1

Try this:

function Test-ReparsePoint([string]$path) {
  $file = Get-Item $path -Force -ea SilentlyContinue
  return [bool]($file.Attributes -band [IO.FileAttributes]::ReparsePoint)
}

It is a pretty minimal implementation, but it should do the trick. Note that this doesn't distinguish between a hard link and a symbolic link. Underneath, they both just take advantage of NTFS reparse points, IIRC.