Sometimes, my life only has time for these short, little lessons.

Today, I learned something new, and without even thinking on it long, I went straight to my blog in order to share it. More or less, anyway. Before we get to the interesting part, let’s quickly discuss three PowerShell cmdlets: Set-Location, Push-Location, and Pop-Location.

Set-Location allows us to relocate ourselves within the file system. This is to say, that we can use this cmdlet to move around from folder to folder, and drive to drive. If I’m at the root of the C:\ drive, I can move to C:\Users, and if I’m in C:\Users and want to move to C:\Windows, I can also use Set-Location, or one of the aliases (cd, chdir, and sl), to get myself there. Here’s a quick example, before we move on.

PS C:\> Set-Location -Path C:\Users
PS C:\Users> Set-Location -Path C:\Windows
PS C:\Windows> Set-Location -Path \
PS C:\>

Push-Location’s purpose is to take our current location in the file system and add it to the location stack. We won’t delve into this too deeply, but picture it this way: It takes our current location in the file system — C:\, or C:\Users, or wherever — and puts it on a piece of paper, on top of a stack of other papers. Now we can reference our paper on top of the stack, to find our previous location the next time we need it.

And that, brings us to Pop-Location. Pop-Location gets the most recent entry on the location stack — that top piece of paper, if you will, and moves us to that location in the file system. Here’s an example of both Push-Location and Pop-Location.

PS C:\> # Our current location is the C:\ drive.
PS C:\> Push-Location
PS C:\> Set-Location -Path C:\Users
PS C:\Users> Pop-Location
PS C:\>

That introduction brings us to something I would’ve thought, I would have already known. Today I learned that Push-Location offers us a two-for-one. Not only will it place the current location on the location stack, as we’d expect, but it can also move us to a different location, such as Set-Location does. Watch.

PS C:\> # Back on the C:\ drive.
PS C:\> Push-Location -Path C:\Windows
PS C:\Windows> Pop-Location
PS C:\> Push-Location -Path C:\Users\tommymaynard
PS C:\Users\tommymaynard> Pop-Location
PS C:\>

With this tidbit of new information, I set out to replace the Set-Location cmdlet in my $PROFILE. Now when I use Set-Location — my new function — I’ll really be using Push-Location. Therefore, I can always return to the previous location in the filesystem with Pop-Location. Always.

Function Set-Location {
    Param (
       [string]$Path
    )
    Push-Location -Path $Path
}

PS C:\> # As you can see, I'm at the root of the C:\ drive.
PS C:\> Set-Location -Path C:\Windows
PS C:\Windows> Pop-Location
PS C:\>