Objects, Properties and Methods Part 3
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Now let’s take a look at using the Properties of an object
- Let’s use the get-childitem command. First type get-childitem | gm PIPE OPERATOR (hold your shift key down and press the key right above the enter key
Then Type GM press enter
We want to use the creationtime property to find out the creation date of the current version of PowerShell, press return
Let’s type the command then I’ll explain it.
Type (Get-ChildItem $pshome\PowerShell.exe).creationtime
- The most common way to get the values of the properties of an object is to
use the dot method. That means that you first surround the parameter and the path with parenthesis. Then insert a (.) then the property. Which in this case is creationtime. Now press return
And we get Wednesday, April 11, 2018 07:35 PM
- By the way $pshome is the path to the PowerShell home folder
Another way to get the properties of an object is to use the select-object command. The select-object command has a parameter called –property that will get the properties of an object.
Let’s type help Select-object -showwindow and let’s analyze the syntax.
- The parameter that we are going to be using is called -property.
Select-object is the name of the cmdlet.
Notice that the parameter -property and the argument’s value type - called object,
both are surrounded by square brackets. That means that both parameter and argument are optional and not needed.
Notice also that -property is surrounded by a separate set of square brackets so -property is positional as well.
We can verify that by scrolling up and looking at the parameter attributes. Which tell us that -property has a position of 0, and it is not required.
That tells us that -property should be located in the first position in the lineup of parameters.
We can also see that the argument has two square brackets inside the two angle brackets this means that the parameter -property can take multiple argumentsseparated by a comma.
- We’ll use get-eventlog security and select-object for this demonstration
Instead of displaying the whole security log let’s just display the newest 6 events.
Type Get-eventlog -logname security -newest 6
- Now let’s use Get-member, which will show us the properties and methods
Type Get-eventlog -logname security -newest 6 | get-member
- Let’s select a few useful properties. How about Time-Generated, EventID and machinename
Type Get-eventlog -logname security -newest 6 | Select-object Source, TimeWritten, machinename, Message. And press return.
And we see that the command ran.
In case your’e wondering why I used -logname, because as we discussed earlier it’s optional and not needed. Here’s why, when your’e first starting out in PowerShell, you might want to go ahead and type out some of the optional parameters. Especially if you plan on saving your commands and one liner’s as scripts for later use. It just makes it easier to remember what these commands and parameters are doing if you go ahead and type them out. The same goes for aliases you can use gsv for get-service . But it’s a whole lot easier to remember what get-service -name BITS is doing instead of gsv bits. Both commands will work, but when you’ve type out the whole command it’s easier to understand especially when you’re first starting with PowerShell.
Thanks for watching and we will see you in the next lecture.
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