Selecting and sorting

Select-Object allows a subset of data to be returned when executing a command. This may be a more restrictive number of elements, or a smaller number of properties.

Sort-Object can be used to perform both simple and complex sorting.

The Select-Object command

Select-Object is most frequently used to limit values by a command. The command is extremely versatile as it enables you to do the following:

• Limit the properties returned by a command by name:

Get-Process | Select-Object -Property Name, Id

• Limit the properties returned from a command using wildcards:

Get-Process | Select-Object -Property Name, *Memory

• List everything but a few properties:

Get-Process | Select-Object -Property * -Exclude *Memory*

• Get the first few objects:

Get-ChildItem C:\ -Recurse | Select-Object -First 2

• Get the last few objects:

        Get-ChildItem C:\ | Select-Object -Last 3

• Skip items at the beginning. In this example, this returns the fifth item:

Get-ChildItem C:\ | Select-Object -Skip 4 -First 1

• Skip...