Where in the world is complete documentation for PowerShell scripting?

Question

I started doing some powershell scripting today for my work and I can find this page: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh849827.aspx

This shows all the Cmdlets that I am using in the scripts, but I cannot find the documentation on how to use the returned objects of these Cmdlets. For example, I am using the Get-ChildItem cmd to get all the files in a dir recursively. Then I am using a ForEach loop like this:

 $dest = "C:\Users\a-mahint\Documents\Testing\Dest"
                    $destlist = Get-ChildItem $dest -Recurse

                    foreach ($file in $destlist){
                    write-host "File: $file"
                    write-host $file
                    $result = test-path -path "C:\Users\a-mahint\Documents\Testing\Src\*" -include $file.Name
                        if (-not $result){
                          Copy-Item $file -Destination "$backup"
                        }

                    }
                    write-host "Done copying deleted files"

Except I have no idea what type of object a $file is...In the documentation above, it just says it outputs a System.Object, but that doesn't help at all. I want to know all the properties of this object so I can use them to debug.

Based on your code above, $dest is under c:\, which is a PSDrive which uses the file system provider. When you use Get-ChildItem with that type of provider, you get a sequence of System.IO.FileSystemInfo objects, either DirectoryInfo or FileInfo depending on whether each item is a directory or file. — JohnL
– JohnL, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 17:53
$file.GetType() will reveal it is actually a FileInfo or DirectoryInfo, based on System.IO.FileSystemInfo. — vonPryz
– vonPryz, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 18:33
I would except that it doesn't answer the question that you actually asked. It answers a specific subset applying to the specific issue that you were trying to resolve. In a general sense though, Get-Help, Get-Command, and Get-Member should be your three most frequently used cmdlets while you are learning Powershell. — EBGreen
– EBGreen, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 20:43

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:28:58Z

2

From a question I asked one time Andy Arismendi supplied some links for me to read.

You can download said specification: 2.0 and 3.0.

$file = Get-Item C:\foo.txt

Remember there is a $file | Get-Member command you can use to view the objects methods and properties. Also since everything in PowerShell is an Object you can always do $file.GetType() and then Bing that type.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:28

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answered Jun 13, 2013 at 18:26

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PowerShell · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-13 17:46:00Z

1

Get-ChildItem "C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\en-US" -Filter *.txt

answered Jun 13, 2013 at 17:46

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KillasRspike · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-13 17:54:12Z

0

Here is a decent reference for get-childitem.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee176841.aspx

What kind of file details are you needing exactly?

answered Jun 13, 2013 at 17:54

KillasRspike

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