Like operator returning false when string contains backtick

Question

This might sound like a silly question but I do not understand why the presence of the backtick character fails a comparison with the Like operator.

For exemple :

> 'a' -Like 'a'
True # Seems logical to me

> '`' -Like '`'
False # Why does this return false ?

Thanks for your help

Answer 1

The backtick (`) works as an escape character for wildcard patterns in PowerShell, so the pattern ` is interpreted as just an empty string.

Escape it like so:

'`' -like '``'

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Beware that ` is also the escape character for expandable strings (ie. double-quoted string literals) in PowerShell, in which case you'd have to double-escape it:

'`' -like "````"