Learning PowerShell basics

Let's explore some PowerShell basic concepts.

Cmdlets

Cmdlets, pronounced as "commandlets", are the foundation of PowerShell. Cmdlets are small commands or specialized commands. The naming convention for cmdlets follows the verb-noun format, such as Get-Command or Invoke-Expression. PowerShell V3 boasts a lot of new cmdlets, including cmdlets to manipulate JSON (ConvertFrom-Json and ConvertTo-Json), web services (Invoke-RestMethod and Invoke-WebRequest), and background jobs (Register-JobEvent, Resume-Job, and Suspend-Job). In addition to built-in cmdlets, there are also downloadable community PowerShell extensions such as SQLPSX, which can be downloaded from http://sqlpsx.codeplex.com/.

Many cmdlets accept parameters. Parameters can either be specified by a name or position. Let's take a look at a specific example. The syntax for the Get-ChildItem cmdlet is as follows:

Get-ChildItem [[-Path] <string[]>] [[-Filter] <string>]
[-Include...