PowerShell: What is Provider/Datastore

What is Datastore

A datastore is Microsoft's name for “collections of data”.

There are different type of datastores:

• File systems
• Environment Variables
• Windows Registry
• Functions
• Variables
• Aliases
• and more

What is Provider

A provider is a directory-like interface to a datastore.

For example, when you type dir (alias of Get-ChildItem) to list directory content, it is done via a provider.

Examples of using different providers:

dir env:

List Environment Variables.

dir function:

List Functions.

dir variable:

List variables.

dir alias:

List Aliases.

List providers

Get-PSProvider

List providers.

Show Drive Name of a Provider

Because provider is a directory-like interface, therefore it has driver names. You can cd name to start to work with that datastore.

Get-PSDrive

Show the “drive” name of provider.

For example of using a provider other than file system, see PowerShell: Windows Registry

List Functions

dir function:

List all functions.

Show Function Code

For example, mkdir is a function. To show the code, type (gcm mkdir).ScriptBlock