Why does Test-Path return True for multiple periods in Windows?

To really test your paths, you might want to use absolute paths like `C:temptestfolder` instead of relative paths with lots of periods. It helps avoid confusion and gives you a clearer idea of what's happening under the hood!

It's pretty quirky, right? On some older Windows versions, using more dots could navigate up the directory tree by multiple levels, but that doesn't hold in the latest versions like Windows 11. So yeah, it can be confusing. The takeaway is that those multiple dots don't actually represent multiple parent directories anymore; they just revert back to what you expect from the last valid path.

True! It seems like using dot commands is mostly for legacy support. I'll try working with absolute paths more. Thanks for the tips everyone!

You're spot on about the historical basis. In DOS and Unix, `.` means current and `..` for the parent. When you start stacking periods, it still defaults back to the current directory, making it always return True. On Windows specifically, it gets interesting because paths like `.....` are treated by the system as valid, effectively ignoring extra periods after the first two. Just remember that if you switch to a different provider or context, the behavior might shift too!

The behavior you're seeing is actually rooted in how operating systems interpret paths. In PowerShell, `.` refers to the current directory and `..` always refers to the parent directory. This means that when you use `...`, it still resolves back to the current directory.

For just the current session, as a path with several dots, like `.....`, translates to the current location due to canonicalization — a process that cleans up the path. So, when you run `Test-Path .....`, it's effectively just checking if the current directory exists, which it always does!