What are the possible 'Mode' values returned by PowerShell's Get-ChildItem cmdlet?

Question

When I run PowerShell's Get-ChildItem on a directory (or any cmdlet that returns file system items), it shows a column called Mode, like this:

    Directory: C:\MyDirectory   Mode                LastWriteTime     Length Name ----                -------------     ------ ---- d----          2/8/2011  10:55 AM            Directory1 d----          2/8/2011  10:54 AM            Directory2 d----          2/8/2011  10:54 AM            Directory3 -ar--          2/8/2011  10:54 AM        454 File1.txt -ar--          2/8/2011  10:54 AM       4342 File2.txt 

I searched and searched Google and my local PowerShell book, but I could not find any documentation on the meaning of the Mode column.

What are the possible values of the Mode column and what does each one mean?

Answer 1

Note that the mode you see is just a string representation of a bitfield enum that hides in the Attributes property. You can figure out what the individual letters mean by simply showing both side by side:

PS> gci|select mode,attributes -u  Mode                Attributes ----                ---------- d-----               Directory d-r---     ReadOnly, Directory d----l Directory, ReparsePoint -a----                 Archive 

In any case, the full list is:

d - Directory a - Archive r - Read-only h - Hidden s - System l - Reparse point, symlink, etc. 

Answer 2

IMHO, the most explanatory is the code itself:

if (instance == null) {     return string.Empty; } FileSystemInfo baseObject = (FileSystemInfo) instance.BaseObject; if (baseObject == null) {     return string.Empty; } string str = ""; if ((baseObject.Attributes & FileAttributes.Directory) == FileAttributes.Directory) {     str = str + "d"; } else {     str = str + "-"; } if ((baseObject.Attributes & FileAttributes.Archive) == FileAttributes.Archive) {     str = str + "a"; } else {     str = str + "-"; } if ((baseObject.Attributes & FileAttributes.ReadOnly) == FileAttributes.ReadOnly) {     str = str + "r"; } else {     str = str + "-"; } if ((baseObject.Attributes & FileAttributes.Hidden) == FileAttributes.Hidden) {     str = str + "h"; } else {     str = str + "-"; } if ((baseObject.Attributes & FileAttributes.System) == FileAttributes.System) {     return (str + "s"); } return (str + "-");