What does the “$” symbol do in Powershell?

Question

I've seen the $ symbol used in PowerShell with every variable. Is there any specific use of this symbol?

Dollar signs are used for variables, see: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/…. It is also used to denote a subexpression, like: $(), see: stackoverflow.com/a/39461670/1701026 — iRon
– iRon, Commented Jul 18, 2019 at 6:12

Prasoon Karunan V · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-18 05:13:17Z

4

The dollar symbol in PowerShell variable is used to set/evaluate the value of that variable.

$Variable1 = hello

Above expression is to define a vriable by setting it a value hello. Here the variable name is Variable1, but with $ it is setting the Variable1 a value hello.

There are cmdlets to set variables where $ is not used.

Set-Variable -Name Variable2 -Value HelloWorld

And get cmdlet for the same.

Get-Variable -Name Variable2

PS: Above explanation is only for variables.

answered Jul 18, 2019 at 5:13

Prasoon Karunan V

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SnappyRiffs · Accepted Answer · 2025-06-11 00:10:49Z

0

One thing that no one mentioned was the Automatic Variables. Commands like $env or $executioncontext will be automatically (and the fact that they are variables, hence the name) recognized by the terminal

answered Jun 11 at 0:10

SnappyRiffs

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Ansgar Wiechers · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-18 07:42:00Z

-1

Use for define variable.

$Variable1 = "hello"

edited Jul 18, 2019 at 7:42

Ansgar Wiechers

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answered Jul 18, 2019 at 5:16

Ivan Fung

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