In PowerShell, how do I test whether or not a specific variable exists in global scope?

Test-Path can be used with a special syntax:

Test-Path variable:global:foo

This also works for environment variables ($env:foo):

Test-Path env:foo

And for non-global variables (just $foo inline):

Test-Path variable:foo

EDIT: Use stej's answer below. My own (partially incorrect) one is still reproduced here for reference:

---

You can use

Get-Variable foo -Scope Global

and trap the error that is raised when the variable doesn't exist.

Personal preference is to use Ignore over SilentlyContinue here because it's not an error at all. Since we're expecting it to potentially be $false let's prevent it (with Ignore) from being put (albeit silently) in the $Error stack.

You can use:

if (Get-Variable 'foo' -Scope 'Global' -ErrorAction 'Ignore') {
    $true
} else {
    $false
}

More tersely:

[bool](gv foo -s global -ea ig)

Output of either:

False

Alternatively

You can trap the error that is raised when the variable doesn't exist.

try {
    Get-Variable foo -Scope Global -ErrorAction 'Stop'
} catch [System.Management.Automation.ItemNotFoundException] {
    Write-Warning $_
}

Outputs:

WARNING: Cannot find a variable with the name 'foo'.