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Home > Cloud & Networking > Shell Scripting > Getting Started with Powershell
Getting Started with Powershell
Getting Started with Powershell

Getting Started with Powershell: Learn the fundamentals of PowerShell to build reusable scripts and functions to automate administrative tasks with Windows

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Getting Started with Powershell

Chapter 2. Building Blocks

Even though books, videos, and the Internet can be helpful in your efforts to learn PowerShell, you will find that your greatest ally in this quest is PowerShell itself. In this chapter, we will look at two fundamental weapons in any PowerShell scripter's arsenal, the Get-Command and Get-Help cmdlets. The topics covered in this chapter include the following:

  • Finding commands using Get-Command
  • Finding commands using tab completion
  • Using Get-Help to understand cmdlets
  • Interpreting the command syntax

What can you do?

You saw in the previous chapter that you are able to run standard command-line programs in PowerShell and that there are aliases defined for some cmdlets that allow you to use the names of commands that you are used to from other shells. Other than these, what can you use? How do you know which commands, cmdlets, and aliases are available?

The answer is the first of the big three cmdlets, the Get-Command cmdlet. Simply executing Get-Command with no parameters displays a list of all the entities that PowerShell considers to be executable. This includes programs in the path (the environment variable), cmdlets, functions, scripts, and aliases.

What can you do?

This list of commands is long and gets longer with each new operating system and PowerShell release. To count the output, we can use this command:

Get-Command | Measure-Object

The output of this command is as follows:

What can you do?

Tip

The pipe character (|) tells PowerShell to use the output of the command on the left of the pipe as the input of the...

The scripter's secret weapon – tab completion

Although Get-Command is a great way to find cmdlets, the truth is that the PowerShell cmdlet names are very predictable. In fact, they're so predictable that after you've been using PowerShell for a while you won't probably turn to Get-Command very often. After you've found the noun or the set of nouns that you're working with, the powerful tab completion found in both the PowerShell console and the ISE will allow you to enter just a part of the command and press tab to cycle through the list of commands that match what you have entered. For instance, in keeping with our examples dealing with services, you could enter *-Service at the command line and press tab. You would first see Get-Service, followed by the rest of the items in the previous screenshot as you hit tab. Tab completion is a huge benefit for your scripting productivity for several reasons, such as:

  • You get the suggestions where you need them...

How does that work?

Knowing what commands you can execute is a big step, but it doesn't help much if you don't know how you can use them. Again, PowerShell is here to help you. To see a quick hint of how to use a cmdlet, write the cmdlet name followed by -?. The beginning of this output for Get-Service is shown as follows:

How does that work?

Even this brief help, which was truncated to fit on the page, shows a brief synopsis of the cmdlet and the syntax to call it, including the possible parameters and their types. The rest of the display shows a longer description of the cmdlet, a list of the related topics, and some instructions about getting more help about Get-Service:

How does that work?

In the Remarks section, we can see that there's a cmdlet called Get-Help (the second of the "big 3" cmdlets) that allows us to view more extensive help in PowerShell. The first type of extra help we can see is the examples. The example output begins with the name and synopsis of the cmdlet and is followed, in the...

Interpreting the cmdlet syntax

The syntax section of the cmdlet help can be overwhelming at first, so let's drill into it a bit and try to understand it in detail. I will use the get-service cmdlet for an example, but the principles are same for any cmdlet:

Interpreting the cmdlet syntax

The first thing to notice is that there are three different get-service calls illustrated here. They correspond to the PowerShell concept of ParameterSets, but you can think of them as different use cases for the cmdlet. Each ParameterSet, or use case will have at least one unique parameter. In this case, the first includes the –Name parameter, the second includes –DisplayName, and the third has the –InputObject parameter.

Each ParameterSet lists the parameters that can be used in a particular scenario. The way the parameter is shown in the listing, tells you how the parameter can be used. For instance, [[-Name] <String[]>] means that the name parameter has the following attributes:

  • It is optional (because...

Summary

This chapter dealt with the first two of the "big three" cmdlets for learning PowerShell, get-Command and get-Help. These two cmdlets allow you to find out which commands are available and how to use them. In the next chapter, we will finish the "big 3" with the get-member cmdlet that will help us to figure out what to do with the output we receive.

What can you do?

You saw in the previous chapter that you are able to run standard command-line programs in PowerShell and that there are aliases defined for some cmdlets that allow you to use the names of commands that you are used to from other shells. Other than these, what can you use? How do you know which commands, cmdlets, and aliases are available?

The answer is the first of the big three cmdlets, the Get-Command cmdlet. Simply executing Get-Command with no parameters displays a list of all the entities that PowerShell considers to be executable. This includes programs in the path (the environment variable), cmdlets, functions, scripts, and aliases.

This list of commands is long and gets longer with each new operating system and PowerShell release. To count the output, we can use this command:

Get-Command | Measure-Object

The output of this command is as follows:

Tip

The pipe character (|) tells PowerShell to use the output of the command on the left of the pipe as the input of the command...

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Description

Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed specifically for system administration. Built on the .NET Framework, Windows PowerShell helps IT professionals and power users control and automate the administration of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows. PowerShell is great for batch importing or deleting large sets of user accounts and will let you collect a massive amount of detailed system information in bulk via WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation). Getting Started with PowerShell is designed to help you get up and running with PowerShell, taking you from the basics of installation, to writing scripts and web server automation. This book, as an introduction to the central topics of PowerShell, covers finding and understanding PowerShell commands and packaging code for reusability, right through to a practical example of automating IIS. It also includes topics such as installation and setup, creating scripts, automating tasks, and using Powershell to access data stores, registry, and file systems. You will explore the PowerShell environment and discover how to use cmdlets, functions, and scripts to automate Windows systems. Along the way, you will learn to perform data manipulation and solve common problems using basic file input/output functions. By the end of this book, you will be familiar with PowerShell and be able to utilize the lessons learned from the book to automate your servers.

Who is this book for?

This book is intended for Windows administrators or DevOps users who need to use PowerShell to automate tasks. Whether you know nothing about PowerShell or know just enough to get by, this guide will give you what you need to go to take your scripting to the next level.

What you will learn

  • Learn to verify your installed version of PowerShell, upgrade it, and start a PowerShell session using the ISE
  • Discover PowerShell commands and cmdlets and understand PowerShell formatting
  • Use the PowerShell help system to understand what particular cmdlets do
  • Utilise the pipeline to perform typical data manipulation
  • Package your code in scripts, functions, and modules
  • Solve common problems using basic file input/output functions
  • Find system information with WMI and CIM
  • Automate IIS functionality and manage it using the WebAdministration module

Product Details

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Publication date, Length, Edition, Language, ISBN-13
Publication date : Aug 27, 2015
Length: 180 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785284908
Category :
Cloud & Networking
Languages :
C#
Concepts :
Shell Scripting
Tools :
PowerShell

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Product feature icon Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Product feature icon Access this title in our online reader with advanced features
Product feature icon DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want

Product Details

Publication date : Aug 27, 2015
Length: 180 pages
Edition : 1st
Language : English
ISBN-13 : 9781785284908
Category :
Cloud & Networking
Languages :
C#
Concepts :
Shell Scripting
Tools :
PowerShell

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Getting Started with Powershell
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Mastering Windows PowerShell Scripting
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Table of Contents

13 Chapters
1. First Steps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
1. First Steps
Determining the installed PowerShell version
Installing/upgrading PowerShell
Starting a PowerShell session
Simple PowerShell commands
PowerShell aliases
Summary
For further reading
2. Building Blocks Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
2. Building Blocks
What can you do?
The scripter's secret weapon – tab completion
How does that work?
Interpreting the cmdlet syntax
Summary
For further reading
3. Objects and PowerShell Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
3. Objects and PowerShell
Objects all the way down
What are members?
The Get-Member cmdlet
Where did these all come from?
Summary
For further reading
4. Life on the Assembly Line Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
4. Life on the Assembly Line
The pipeline as an assembly line
Dealing with pipeline data
Putting them together
Summary
For further reading
5. Formatting Output Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
5. Formatting Output
When does formatting occur?
The rules of automatic formatting
Cmdlets that control formatting
The dangers of formatting
Best practices of formatting
Summary
For further reading
6. Scripts Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
6. Scripts
Packaging commands
Parameters add flexibility
Adding some logic
Profiles
Summary
For further reading
7. Functions Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
7. Functions
Another kind of container
Executing and calling functions
Naming conventions
Comment-based help
Parameters revisited
Default values for parameters
Output
Summary
For further reading
8. Modules Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
8. Modules
Packaging functions
Script modules
Where do modules live?
Removing a module
PowerShell module autoloading
The #Requires statement
Removing a module – take two
Listing modules
Summary
9. File I/O Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
9. File I/O
Reading and writing text files
Working with CSV files
PowerShell streams and redirection
CLIXML – a special type of XML
Summary
For further reading
10. WMI and CIM Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
10. WMI and CIM
What is WMI?
Finding WMI classes
Retrieving objects with Get-WMIObject
Calling methods
WMI and CIM
CDXML modules
Summary
For further reading
11. Web Server Administration Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
11. Web Server Administration
Installing IIS
Verifying IIS
The WebAdministration module
Starting, stopping, and restarting IIS
Creating virtual directories and web applications
Working with application pools
Summary
For further reading
A. Next Steps Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
A. Next Steps
Index Chevron down icon Chevron up icon
Index

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About the author

Profile icon Michael Shepard
Michael Shepard
Michael Shepard has been working with computers since the early '80s, starting with an Apple II in school and a Commodore 64 at home. He started working in the IT industry in 1989 and has been working full-time since 1997. He has been working at Jack Henry & Associates, Inc. since 2000. His focus has changed over the years from being a database application developer to a DBA, an application admin, and is now a solutions architect. In his years as a DBA, he found PowerShell to be a critical component in creating the automation required to keep up with a growing set of servers and applications. He is active in the PowerShell community at Stack Overflow and projects at CodePlex. He has been blogging about PowerShell since 2009 at http://powershellstation.com.
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