Understanding the Powershell Platform

Question 1

Name the two Powershell “flavors”

Answer 1

The “Command Window” and ISE

Question 2

Name the two Powershell “flavors”

Answer 2

The “Command Window” and ISE

Question 3

What are the methods to retrieve a directory listing?

Answer 3

dir
ls
Get-ChildItem

Question 4

The best way to customize the command window or ISE is via the…

Answer 4

Shortcut to the relevant program. This means that the changes will be remembered.

Question 5

Command Window is useful for

Answer 5

Calling Scripts

Exploratory Work

Question 6

ISE is useful for

Answer 6

Development

Question 7

Powershell scripts have the extension

Answer 7

.ps1

Question 8

Single line comments begin with a

Answer 8

#

Question 9

Multiline comments begin and end with

Question 10

Regions are denoted with

Answer 10

#region [Optional Title]
#endregion [Optional Title]

Question 11

How do you retrieve a list of all system cmdlets?

Answer 11

Get-Command

Question 12

How do you retrieve a list of all system commands?

Answer 12

Get-Command

Question 13

How do you retrieve a list of only cmdlets that have a noun of “Service”

Answer 13

Get-Command -noun “Service”

Question 14

How do you get help for a given cmdlet

Answer 14

Get-Help [Cmdlet Name]

e.g. Get-Help Get-Command

Question 15

Command Window is useful for

Answer 15

Calling Scripts

Exploratory Work

Question 16

How do you see the online version of a help entry?

Answer 16

Get-Help [Command-Name] -online

Question 17

What’s the shortcut for pulling up help?

Answer 17

Command-Name -?

Question 18

Single line comments begin with a

Answer 18

#

Question 19

Multiline comments begin and end with

Question 20

How do we find which command a specific alias points to?

Answer 20

Get-Alias [alias]

Question 21

All commandlets (cmdlet) are structured as

Answer 21

Verb-Noun

Question 22

How do you retrieve a list of all system cmdlets?

Answer 22

Get-Command

Question 23

How do you retrieve a list of only cmdlets that have a verb of “Get-“

Answer 23

Get-Command -verb “Get”

Question 24

How do we set the current directory?

Answer 24

Set-Location “path\or\relative\path”

Question 25

How do you get help for a given cmdlet

Answer 25

Get-Help [Cmdlet Name] | e.g. Get-Help Get-Command

Question 26

What is the typical structure of a Help entry?

Answer 26

``` NAME SYNOPSIS SYNTAX DESCRIPTION RELATED LINKS REMARKS ```

Question 27

How do you see the online version of a help entry?

Answer 27

Get-Help [Command-Name] -online

Question 28

When working with a collection (in a pipelining scenario), how do you specify the "current" object?

Answer 28

$_

Question 29

What is the syntax for specifying all files with a length greater than 10kb?

Answer 29

Get-ChildItem | Where-Object{$_.Length -gt 10kb}

Question 30

How do we find out all Aliases on that have been imported?

Answer 30

Get-Alias

Question 31

How do we find which command a specific alias points to?

Answer 31

Get-Alias [alias]

Question 32

How do we find which aliases exist for a given cmdlet?

Answer 32

Get-Alias -Definition [cmdlet-Name]

Question 33

Is it wise to use aliases in prod code?

Answer 33

No - people don't necessarily know the aliases so best to use the full cmdlet name.

Question 34

What is pipelining?

Answer 34

A method in PowerShell by which we can chain cmdlets together.

Question 35

How do we set the current directory?

Answer 35

Set-Location "path\or\relative\path"

Question 36

What is the character that is used for pipelining?

Answer 36

The pipe "|"

Question 37

What is the filtering cmdlet for pipelining?

Answer 37

Where-Command

Question 38

In PowerShell, everything that you work with is an..

Answer 38

object

Question 39

When working with a collection (in a pipelining scenario), how do you specify the "current" object?

Answer 39

$_

Question 40

What is the syntax for specifying all files with a length greater than 10kb?

Answer 40

Get-ChildItem | Where-Object{$_.Length -gt 10kb}

Question 41

Back in Help, conceptual topics start with...

Answer 41

about_

Question 42

How do we get a list of conceptual topics

Answer 42

Get-Help about_*

Question 43

Which cmdlet do you use to sort a collection?

Answer 43

Sort-Object

Question 44

What is the syntax to retrieve a list of files whose length is greater than 10kb, sorted by length?

Answer 44

Get-ChildItem | Where-Object{$_.Length -gt 10kb} | Sort-Object Length

Question 45

How do you get details about the current version of PowerShell that is installed?

Answer 45

$PSVersionTable

Question 46

When pipelining how can you split the source code lines?

Answer 46

Make sure that the pipe character is the VERY LAST character on the line before starting a new line.

Question 47

Given the following: Get-ChildItem | Where-Object {$_.Length -gt 10kb} | Sort-Object Length How could you specify which properties to return?

Answer 47

Use Format-Table -Property [PropName1], [PropName2] etc | -AutoSize to automatically pad where necessary.

Question 48

Given Get-ChildItem how can we extract certain properties into a new object?

Answer 48

Get-ChildItem | Select-Object Name, Length | for example

Question 49

If we're not using pipes, how can we split commands up over multiple lines?

Answer 49

Back-tick (`) | It HAS to be the last character (like the pipe)

Question 50

Get-ChildItem returns items from a ....

Answer 50

Provider

Question 51

How do you get the list of providers that are available?

Answer 51

Get-PSProvider

Question 52

How can a specific provider be specified when using Get-ChildItem

Answer 52

Specify the "drive" in the path. Eg: Get-ChildItem env: returns environment variables.

Question 53

Using pipelining, how can we pipe results into a gui Grid View?

Answer 53

Out-GridView e.g. Get-ChildItem | Out-GridView Use -PassThrough switch to ensure that data is passed from the grid view through to the next cmdlet.

Question 54

With the GridView how do we restrict / enable multiple selections?

Answer 54

- OutputMode Single or | - OutputMode Multiple

Question 55

How can I specify a Title for the Grid View?

Answer 55

-Title "Title to display"

Question 56

How can I pass the selections from a GridView into a variable?

Answer 56

Use the -OutVariable parameter. E.g.: $ov = $null Get-ChildItem | Out-GridView -PassThru -OutVariable $ov

Question 57

How do I clear the output screen

Answer 57

Clear-Host

Question 58

How do I get a list of drives (be they physical or provider-based)?

Answer 58

Get-PSDrive

Question 59

How can I set my own PS Drive?

Answer 59

``` Use Set-PSDrive e.g. New-PSDrive -Name cw ` -PSProvider FileSystem ` -Root C:\Users\chrisw ```

Question 60

How can I remove that PSDrive?

Answer 60

Remove-PSDrive [PSDriveName]