What does the ">" symbol mean in PowerShell

Question

Can someone explain what the > symbol does in PowerShell scripting?

To be specific, I am looking at the following line:

New-Item $env:Passwords -ItemType Directory -Force > $null  }

Answer 1

That is the redirection operator, specifically for output. In this case, it redirects (sends) the output of New-Item to the destination $null - IOW, it suppresses it so there is no output.

You can see the help topic about_Redirection, or for more general information Using command redirection at MSDN.