Often, URLs redirect to the final URL, so if you’d like to know where a given URL really points to, use a function like this:
function Resolve-Url { [CmdletBinding()] param ( [Parameter(Mandatory)] [string] $url ) $request = [System.Net.WebRequest]::Create($url) $request.AllowAutoRedirect=$false $response = $request.GetResponse() $url = $response.GetResponseHeader("Location") $response.Close() $response.Dispose() return $url }
For example, the latest PowerShell release is always available via this url: https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/latest
By resolving this URL, you get back the currently active latest URL which in turn is a quick way of finding the latest PowerShell version available:
PS C:\> Resolve-Url -url https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/latest https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/tag/v6.2.1 PS C:\> ((Resolve-Url -url https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/latest) -split '/')[-1] v6.2.1 PS C:\> [version](((Resolve-Url -url https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell/releases/latest) -split '/')[-1] -replace 'v') Major Minor Build Revision ----- ----- ----- -------- 6 2 1 -1
