GeezerVison

There is a using directive for System.IO.Directory, so any reason to use the full type name here?

Fixed.

The current behavior is to throw a non-terminating error, so for this test, it will pass even if it actually failed. see [+] ee 297ms below

PS:122> describe "aa" { It "ee" { { Select-String -Path * hi } | should not throw } }
Describing aa
Select-String : The file F:\tmp\test\pp cannot be read: Access to the path 'F:\tmp\test\pp' is denied.
At line:1 char:29
+ describe "aa" { It "ee" { { Select-String -Path * hi } | should not t ...
+                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Select-String], ArgumentException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : ProcessingFile,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SelectStringCommand

 [+] ee 297ms

Like the above should not throw test, you should verify the expected error (ProcessingFile,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SelectStringCommand)

Should not throw might not be a good test here because it doesn't throw with the current behavior -- a non-terminating error is written out.

I think this test is fine but you should also verify the reported error (ProcessingFile,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SelectStringCommand) either in the test or in another test.

I skipped '-ErrorAction Stop' - Fixed.

Suggest using -ErrorAction Stop.

I see we usualy use -Force - I added.
Please clarify about -ErrorAction Stop - I don't found such samples in our tests.

For me, its all about failure diagnosability. The test is dependent on the directory and if new-item fails, there's no point in the test continuing. Using -EA Stop ensures you get the error at the point of the failure instead of later on when it may be muddled by test or product code.
Its just a suggestion.

Hmm... I actually think we should only ignore directories if they're among the paths that result from wildcard resolution.

If you specify an effectively literal directory path - whether via -LiteralPath or via -Path and a path that happens not to contain (unescaped) wildcard characters - you should continue to get an error (though arguably a better one than currently).

This will let users know that specifying directories is not supported. With this fix as-is, If you do something like Select-String foo ., you'll get no output and no error, which could be misinterpreted as the string not having been found in any files in the directory.

I think the behavior should be analogous to the following Get-ChildItem behavior:

Get-ChildItem -Directory -LiteralPath /NoSuchDir  # error
Get-ChildItem -Directory -Path /NoSuchDir  # error too, because the path contains no (unescaped) wildcard chars.
Get-ChildItem -Directory -Path /NoSuchDir*  # NO error, because the wildcard expression matched nothing.

Good point. We can reactivate #4820 and get the behavior fixed. Ilya (@iSazonov) what do you think?

Now Select-String behavior is the same as Unblock-File. There may be other examples (?)
So I believe it is another issue.
I agree that we could fix this with a "breaking change" symptom. If Michael Klement (@mklement0) would done the analysis (what cmdlets should we fix?), I'd have solved the Issue.