What are the possible 'Mode' values returned by PowerShell's Get-ChildItem cmdlet?

Question

When I run PowerShell\'s Get-ChildItem on a directory (or any cmdlet that returns file system items), it shows a column called Mode, like this:

Answer 1

Note that the mode you see is just a string representation of a bitfield enum that hides in the Attributes property. You can figure out what the individual letters mean by simply showing both side by side:

PS> gci|select mode,attributes -u

Mode                Attributes
----                ----------
d-----               Directory
d-r---     ReadOnly, Directory
d----l Directory, ReparsePoint
-a----                 Archive

In any case, the full list is:

d - Directory
a - Archive
r - Read-only
h - Hidden
s - System
l - Reparse point, symlink, etc.