PR Summary

Fix Set-Location failure when switching drives to restore paths containing special characters like brackets.

PR Context

Fixes #25282

When switching drives using drive-letter-only syntax (e.g., E:), PowerShell attempts to restore the previous location on that drive from CurrentLocation. However, if the path contains special characters like brackets, wildcard expansion incorrectly interprets them as wildcard patterns, causing Set-Location to fail with "Cannot find path" error.

Before this fix:

# Navigate to a directory with brackets
md "E:\Test [Folder] with brackets"
cd 'E:\Test `[Folder`] with brackets'

# Switch to another drive
C:

# Try to switch back - FAILS
E:
# Error: Set-Location: Cannot find path 'E:\Test [Folder] with brackets' because it does not exist.

After this fix:

# Navigate to a directory with brackets
md "E:\Test [Folder] with brackets"
cd 'E:\Test `[Folder`] with brackets'

# Switch to another drive
C:

# Switch back - WORKS
E:
# Successfully restored to: E:\Test [Folder] with brackets

PR Checklist

• PR has a meaningful title
  • Use the present tense and imperative mood when describing your changes
• Summarized changes
• Make sure all .h, .cpp, .cs, .ps1 and .psm1 files have the correct copyright header
• This PR is ready to merge and is not Work in Progress
• Breaking changes
  • None
• User-facing changes
  • Not Applicable
• Testing - New and feature
  • Make sure you've added a new test if existing tests do not effectively test the code changed
• New and old tests pass locally

Description

Root Cause

When switching drives with syntax like E:, PowerShell restores the drive's current location by combining the drive letter with the path stored in CurrentDrive.CurrentLocation. This restored path is then processed through the normal path resolution logic, which performs wildcard expansion on special characters.

For paths containing brackets (e.g., E:\Test [Folder]), the brackets are interpreted as wildcard character classes, causing path resolution to fail.

Solution

This PR treats paths restored from drive's CurrentLocation as literal paths by suppressing wildcard expansion, similar to how -LiteralPath parameter works.

Implementation:

1. Added pathRestoredFromDrive flag to track when a path is restored from a drive's CurrentLocation
2. Set context.SuppressWildcardExpansion = true when pathRestoredFromDrive is true
3. This ensures special characters in restored paths are treated literally, not as wildcard patterns

Files Changed

• src/System.Management.Automation/engine/SessionStateLocationAPIs.cs - Added path restoration tracking and wildcard suppression
• test/powershell/Modules/Microsoft.PowerShell.Management/Set-Location.Tests.ps1 - Added comprehensive test coverage

Testing

Test Coverage

Added 10 comprehensive test cases covering:

1. Basic navigation with escaped brackets

   • Verifies that escaped paths work for initial navigation

2. Physical drive ↔ C: drive switching (3 tests)

   • Physical drive → C: → Physical drive restoration
   • C: → Physical drive → C: restoration
   • Multiple round-trips between drives

3. PSDrive ↔ C: drive switching (3 tests)

   • PSDrive → C: → PSDrive restoration
   • C: → PSDrive → C: restoration
   • Multiple round-trips between PSDrive and C:

4. Same-drive navigation (3 tests)

   • Physical drive same-drive cd (e.g., T: when already on T:)
   • C: drive same-drive cd (e.g., C: when already on C:)
   • PSDrive same-drive cd (e.g., TestPS: when already on TestPS:)

Test Environment

• Physical drives: Uses subst command to create temporary physical drives (1-character names: T, U, V, etc.)
• PSDrive: Uses New-PSDrive to create drives with multi-character names (e.g., "TestPS")
• Special characters: Tests focus on brackets [] as the primary problematic characters

Manual Testing

# Test 1: Physical drive with brackets
subst T: $env:TEMP
md "T:\Test [Folder]"
cd 'T:\Test `[Folder`]'
C:
T:  # Should restore to T:\Test [Folder]
(Get-Location).Path  # Should be: T:\Test [Folder]

# Test 2: PSDrive with brackets
New-PSDrive -Name MyDrive -PSProvider FileSystem -Root $env:TEMP
md "$env:TEMP\Test [Folder]"
cd 'MyDrive:\Test `[Folder`]'
C:
MyDrive:  # Should restore to MyDrive:\Test [Folder]
(Get-Location).Path  # Should include: Test [Folder]

# Test 3: Same-drive navigation
cd 'C:\Temp\Test `[Folder`]'
C:  # Should stay in C:\Temp\Test [Folder]
(Get-Location).Path  # Should be: C:\Temp\Test [Folder]

Automated Tests

All 10 tests pass successfully:

Context Set-Location with special characters in path
  [+] Should navigate to directory with brackets using escaped path
  [+] Should restore path with brackets when switching from physical drive to C: and back
  [+] Should restore path with brackets when switching from C: to physical drive and back
  [+] Should handle multiple round-trips between drives with special characters
  [+] Should restore path with brackets when switching from PSDrive to C: and back
  [+] Should restore path with brackets when switching from C: to PSDrive and back
  [+] Should handle multiple round-trips between PSDrive and C: with special characters
  [+] Should not change location when using same-drive syntax on current drive
  [+] Should not change location when using same-drive syntax on C: drive
  [+] Should not change location when using same-drive syntax on PSDrive

Tests Passed: 31, Failed: 0

Additional Notes

• This fix does not affect normal path operations or -LiteralPath usage
• Only paths automatically restored from drive's CurrentLocation are affected
• The behavior now matches user expectations: drive switching should preserve the exact path, regardless of special characters
• No breaking changes - this fix only corrects previously broken behavior