Topic: Get-Member

Notice: This post is a part of the PowerShell Monday series — a group of quick and easy to read mini lessons that briefly cover beginning and intermediate PowerShell topics. As a PowerShell enthusiast, this seemed like a beneficial way to ensure those around me at work were consistently learning new things about Windows PowerShell. At some point, I decided I would share these posts here, as well. Here’s the PowerShell Monday Table of Contents.

In a previous PowerShell Monday — before the seven consecutive weeks of PowerShell remoting — we concatenated the strings ‘5’ and ‘5’ (as ‘5’ + ‘5’) to return ’55’. Additionally, we added the numeric values 5 and 5 (as 5 + 5) to return 10. The problem is that without the command that created the result, we don’t know which result is a string, and which is a numeric value.

55

10

If you’re not using the Get-Member cmdlet, then it’s time you start. The Get-Member cmdlet returns the members of an object. It’s important to know that nearly everything in PowerShell is an object. It’s not terribly difficult to understand, and it’s my belief that Get-Member is one of the three most important, introductory PowerShell cmdlets.

Here’s the thing about objects: They have members. Two of the most common members are properties and methods. Properties are attributes, or things that describe the object. If a person was an object, then the properties might be height, hair color, and toe count. Methods are things the object can do. If a person was an object, then the methods might be jump, run, sleep, and swim. I’ve read about a bicycle being used to explain an object’s properties and methods, too. A bike’s properties might be the chain, the handle bar, and tires. The methods might be brake (or stop), bunny hop, and turn.

Keep this in mind as we further explore objects and the Get-Member cmdlet next week.