Summary SOFTWEREENNGNEERING

PowerShell
PowerShell
Notes for Professionals
®



Notes for Professionals




100+ pages
of professional hints and tricks


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,Contents
About ................................................................................................................................................................................... 1
Chapter 1: Getting started with PowerShell .................................................................................................... 2
Section 1.1: Allow scripts stored on your machine to run un-signed ........................................................................ 2
Section 1.2: Aliases & Similar Functions ....................................................................................................................... 2
Section 1.3: The Pipeline - Using Output from a PowerShell cmdlet ........................................................................ 3
Section 1.4: Calling .Net Library Methods .................................................................................................................... 4
Section 1.5: Installation or Setup .................................................................................................................................. 5
Section 1.6: Commenting ............................................................................................................................................... 5
Section 1.7: Creating Objects ........................................................................................................................................ 6
Chapter 2: Variables in PowerShell ..................................................................................................................... 7
Section 2.1: Simple variable .......................................................................................................................................... 7
Section 2.2: Arrays ........................................................................................................................................................ 7
Section 2.3: List Assignment of Multiple Variables ..................................................................................................... 7
Section 2.4: Scope ......................................................................................................................................................... 8
Section 2.5: Removing a variable ................................................................................................................................ 8
Chapter 3: Operators .................................................................................................................................................. 9
Section 3.1: Comparison Operators ............................................................................................................................. 9
Section 3.2: Arithmetic Operators ................................................................................................................................ 9
Section 3.3: Assignment Operators ........................................................................................................................... 10
Section 3.4: Redirection Operators ............................................................................................................................ 10
Section 3.5: Mixing operand types, the type of the left operand dictates the behavior ...................................... 11
Section 3.6: Logical Operators ................................................................................................................................... 11
Section 3.7: String Manipulation Operators .............................................................................................................. 11
Chapter 4: Special Operators .............................................................................................................................. 13
Section 4.1: Array Expression Operator ..................................................................................................................... 13
Section 4.2: Call Operation ......................................................................................................................................... 13
Section 4.3: Dot sourcing operator ............................................................................................................................ 13
Chapter 5: Basic Set Operations ......................................................................................................................... 14
Section 5.1: Filtering: Where-Object / where / ? ...................................................................................................... 14
Section 5.2: Ordering: Sort-Object / sort .................................................................................................................. 14
Section 5.3: Grouping: Group-Object / group .......................................................................................................... 15
Section 5.4: Projecting: Select-Object / select .......................................................................................................... 16
Chapter 6: Conditional logic .................................................................................................................................. 17
Section 6.1: if, else and else if ..................................................................................................................................... 17
Section 6.2: Negation .................................................................................................................................................. 17
Section 6.3: If conditional shorthand ......................................................................................................................... 18
Chapter 7: Loops ......................................................................................................................................................... 19
Section 7.1: Foreach ..................................................................................................................................................... 19
Section 7.2: For ............................................................................................................................................................ 19
Section 7.3: ForEach() Method ................................................................................................................................... 19
Section 7.4: ForEach-Object ....................................................................................................................................... 20
Section 7.5: Continue ................................................................................................................................................... 21
Section 7.6: Break ........................................................................................................................................................ 21
Section 7.7: While ......................................................................................................................................................... 22
Section 7.8: Do ............................................................................................................................................................. 22
Chapter 8: Switch statement ................................................................................................................................ 24

, Section 8.1: Simple Switch ........................................................................................................................................... 24
Section 8.2: Switch Statement with CaseSensitive Parameter ............................................................................... 24
Section 8.3: Switch Statement with Wildcard Parameter ........................................................................................ 24
Section 8.4: Switch Statement with File Parameter ................................................................................................. 25
Section 8.5: Simple Switch with Default Condition ................................................................................................... 25
Section 8.6: Switch Statement with Regex Parameter ............................................................................................ 26
Section 8.7: Simple Switch With Break ...................................................................................................................... 26
Section 8.8: Switch Statement with Exact Parameter .............................................................................................. 27
Section 8.9: Switch Statement with Expressions ...................................................................................................... 27
Chapter 9: Strings ....................................................................................................................................................... 28
Section 9.1: Multiline string .......................................................................................................................................... 28
Section 9.2: Here-string .............................................................................................................................................. 28
Section 9.3: Concatenating strings ............................................................................................................................ 28
Section 9.4: Special characters .................................................................................................................................. 29
Section 9.5: Creating a basic string ........................................................................................................................... 29
Section 9.6: Format string .......................................................................................................................................... 30
Chapter 10: HashTables ........................................................................................................................................... 31
Section 10.1: Access a hash table value by key ........................................................................................................ 31
Section 10.2: Creating a Hash Table .......................................................................................................................... 31
Section 10.3: Add a key value pair to an existing hash table .................................................................................. 31
Section 10.4: Remove a key value pair from an existing hash table ..................................................................... 32
Section 10.5: Enumerating through keys and Key-Value Pairs .............................................................................. 32
Section 10.6: Looping over a hash table ................................................................................................................... 32
Chapter 11: Working with Objects ....................................................................................................................... 34
Section 11.1: Examining an object ............................................................................................................................... 34
Section 11.2: Updating Objects ................................................................................................................................... 35
Section 11.3: Creating a new object ............................................................................................................................ 35
Section 11.4: Creating Instances of Generic Classes ................................................................................................ 37
Chapter 12: PowerShell Functions ...................................................................................................................... 39
Section 12.1: Basic Parameters ................................................................................................................................... 39
Section 12.2: Advanced Function ............................................................................................................................... 39
Section 12.3: Mandatory Parameters ........................................................................................................................ 41
Section 12.4: Parameter Validation ............................................................................................................................ 41
Section 12.5: Simple Function with No Parameters .................................................................................................. 43
Chapter 13: PowerShell Classes ........................................................................................................................... 44
Section 13.1: Listing available constructors for a class ............................................................................................ 44
Section 13.2: Methods and properties ....................................................................................................................... 45
Section 13.3: Constructor overloading ....................................................................................................................... 45
Section 13.4: Get All Members of an Instance ........................................................................................................... 46
Section 13.5: Basic Class Template ............................................................................................................................ 46
Section 13.6: Inheritance from Parent Class to Child Class ..................................................................................... 47
Chapter 14: PowerShell Modules ........................................................................................................................ 48
Section 14.1: Create a Module Manifest ..................................................................................................................... 48
Section 14.2: Simple Module Example ....................................................................................................................... 48
Section 14.3: Exporting a Variable from a Module ................................................................................................... 49
Section 14.4: Structuring PowerShell Modules .......................................................................................................... 49
Section 14.5: Location of Modules .............................................................................................................................. 49
Section 14.6: Module Member Visibility ..................................................................................................................... 49
Chapter 15: PowerShell profiles .......................................................................................................................... 50

, Section 15.1: Create an basic profile .......................................................................................................................... 50
Chapter 16: Calculated Properties ..................................................................................................................... 51
Section 16.1: Display file size in KB - Calculated Properties ..................................................................................... 51
Chapter 17: Using existing static classes ........................................................................................................ 52
Section 17.1: Adding types ........................................................................................................................................... 52
Section 17.2: Using the .Net Math Class ..................................................................................................................... 52
Section 17.3: Creating new GUID instantly ................................................................................................................ 52
Chapter 18: Built-in variables ................................................................................................................................ 54
Section 18.1: $PSScriptRoot ......................................................................................................................................... 54
Section 18.2: $Args ...................................................................................................................................................... 54
Section 18.3: $PSItem ................................................................................................................................................... 54
Section 18.4: $? ............................................................................................................................................................. 54
Section 18.5: $error ...................................................................................................................................................... 54
Chapter 19: Automatic Variables ........................................................................................................................ 56
Section 19.1: $OFS ........................................................................................................................................................ 56
Section 19.2: $? ............................................................................................................................................................. 56
Section 19.3: $null ......................................................................................................................................................... 56
Section 19.4: $error ...................................................................................................................................................... 57
Section 19.5: $pid ......................................................................................................................................................... 57
Section 19.6: Boolean values ...................................................................................................................................... 57
Section 19.7: $_ / $PSItem .......................................................................................................................................... 58
Section 19.8: $PSVersionTable ................................................................................................................................... 58
Chapter 20: Environment Variables .................................................................................................................. 59
Section 20.1: Windows environment variables are visible as a PS drive called Env: ............................................ 59
Section 20.2: Instant call of Environment Variables with $env: .............................................................................. 59
Chapter 21: Splatting ................................................................................................................................................ 60
Section 21.1: Piping and Splatting ............................................................................................................................... 60
Section 21.2: Passing a Switch parameter using Splatting ...................................................................................... 60
Section 21.3: Splatting From Top Level Function to a Series of Inner Function .................................................... 61
Section 21.4: Splatting parameters ............................................................................................................................ 61
Chapter 22: PowerShell "Streams"; Debug, Verbose, Warning, Error, Output and
Information .................................................................................................................................................................... 63
Section 22.1: Write-Output .......................................................................................................................................... 63
Section 22.2: Write Preferences ................................................................................................................................. 63
Chapter 23: Sending Email ..................................................................................................................................... 65
Section 23.1: Send-MailMessage with predefined parameters ............................................................................... 65
Section 23.2: Simple Send-MailMessage ................................................................................................................... 66
Section 23.3: SMTPClient - Mail with .txt file in body message ............................................................................... 66
Chapter 24: PowerShell Remoting .................................................................................................................... 67
Section 24.1: Connecting to a Remote Server via PowerShell ................................................................................ 67
Section 24.2: Run commands on a Remote Computer ........................................................................................... 67
Section 24.3: Enabling PowerShell Remoting ........................................................................................................... 69
Section 24.4: A best practise for automatically cleaning-up PSSessions .............................................................. 70
Chapter 25: Working with the PowerShell pipeline ................................................................................... 71
Section 25.1: Writing Functions with Advanced Lifecycle ........................................................................................ 71
Section 25.2: Basic Pipeline Support in Functions .................................................................................................... 71
Section 25.3: Working concept of pipeline ............................................................................................................... 72
Chapter 26: PowerShell Background Jobs .................................................................................................... 73