database-tools

When you create functions that return custom objects, there is no way for you to declare which functions should display by default. PowerShell...

If you'd like to maintain a log file with all the commands you entered interactively - in the PowerShell console as well as in the ISE editor -...

In PowerShell 3.0, you can cast a hash table to a PSCustomObject type to easily generate your own objects: $content = @{ Name="Weltner"...

To prevent a function to be redefined or overwritten, you can write-protect it: function Test-Function { 'Hello World!' } Set-Item -Path...

There are numerous ways how you can create new objects that you may use to return results from your functions. One way is using JSON, a very simple...

You can enable the -WhatIf and -Confirm parameters in your functions too, and control which parts of your code get skipped if the user specifies...

In a previous tip you learned that assigning an enumeration data type to a function parameter automatically enables argument completion in...

In a previous tip you learned how decorating function parameters with a ValidateSet attribute would allow the ISE editor to display intelliSense...

To take advantage of the new PowerShell 3.0 argument completion, make sure you're adding ValidateSet attribute to your function parameters...

In PowerShell 3.0, while you still can use the powerful Get-WmiObject cmdlet, it is slowly becoming replaced by the family of CIM cmdlets. If you...

In times where cmdlets can originate from all kinds of modules, it sometimes becomes important to find out which cmdlets are truly built into...

To get rich IntelliSense in PowerShell ISE 3.0, you should start adding the OutputType attribute to your functions. If you do, then ISE is able to...

Here is a simple line that tells you whether PowerShell runs in MTA- or STA-mode: [Runspace]::DefaultRunspace.ApartmentState -eq 'STA' This...

There are various ways to determine the IP address that is assigned to your machine. Here is a rather unusual approach that uses text operators to...

Sometimes, you know the information you are after is present in some object property, but there are so many properties that it is a hassle to search...

When you save Excel spreadsheets to a CSV file, special characters get lost. That's because Excel is saving the CSV file using very simple ANSI...

If you have a CSV file and would like to change the order of columns, simply import it into PowerShell, use Select-Object to change the order, and...

To find open files on a remote system, use openfiles.exe and convert the results to rich objects. Here is a sample (replace "storage1"...

If you want to create your own custom objects, for example, to enable your functions to return rich objects, you can always use Select-Object like...

There are four new operators in PowerShell v3: -shl: shifts bits to the left -shr: shifts bits to right and preserves sign for signed values -in:...

In PowerShell v2, function parameters could be decorated with validation attributes. In PowerShell v3, these attributes can now also be applied to...

In PowerShell v3 language syntax, it is finally allowed to have line breaks after "." and "::". These symbols are used to access...

Here is a piece of code that illustrates some of the challenges when writing remotable code: function Get-Log($LogName='System',...

If you want to send a script block to a remote computer, it is important to understand that the script block is evaluated on the remote computer. So...

Enabling PowerShell Remoting is a simple thing: open an elevated PowerShell console and type: PS> Enable-PSRemoting -Force There are two types of...

In PowerShell, the variable "$_" has special importance. It works like a placeholder in scenarios like this one: PS> Get-ChildItem...