powershell cannot change directory if path contains [ whereas dos command can

Question

I don't understand why I cannot in PowerShell go into a folder with [], for example

cd c:\test\[demo]

whereas I have created in PowerShell with

md [demo]

and I can actually cd with DOS command.

So what can I do if I want to navigate in this folder from PowerShell ?

[DOS and cmd are very different](https://superuser.com/a/1411173/241386), don't use `dos` when using cmd — phuclv, May 29 '22 at 13:05

score 7 · Accepted Answer · edited May 29 '22 at 21:16

cd in PowerShell is an alias to Set-Location which receives a -Path by default if no option is specified. Almost all PowerShell commands that deal with files like Get-ChildItem, Get-Acl... use the FileSystem Provider and has -Path as a wildcard pattern where [] has special meaning. You'll need to escape those special characters like this

 cd '`[demo`]'

But cmdlets that receives wildcards also have -LiteralPath and that's the correct way to do

cd -LiteralPath [demo] # Or
cd -L [demo]

powershell cannot change directory if path contains [ whereas dos command can

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