posts-powershell

In the previous tip we illustrated how you can get a list of characters that are illegal in paths or file names. However, what would be the best and...

When dealing with files and folders, some characters are considered illegal. Here is an easy way to get a list of the characters that Windows...

With PowerShellGet, you can easily share PowerShell code. Go to www.powershellgallery.com and download the MSI installer to install PowerShellGet if...

If you must ensure that a string contains only a given set of characters, try this: $text = 'tobias.weltner' $hasOtherCharacters = $text...

Use Insert() to insert new text into an existing string at a given position. Here is an example: $text = "Server failed" 1..100 |...

The Windows file system often has issues with file paths longer than 256 characters. Provided you followed our tips and installed PowerShellGet, you...

In PowerShell 5.0, when you enter code into the PowerShell console, the tokens get colorized, much similar to the PowerShell ISE interactive...

In the previous tip we introduced the PowerShell Gallery and showed how to download content (scripts and modules). Since the PowerShell Gallery is a...

The PowerShell Gallery is a public repository for PowerShell scripts and modules. It is entirely managed by cmdlets. Before you can use the...

In previous versions of PowerShell, session logging (transcripts) were supported only in the PowerShell console, and there could only be one...

PowerShell always supported session logging in the PowerShell console. Simply enter Start-Transcript to log all input and output to a text file....

Beginning with PowerShell 5.0, you can break into the debugger any time (in the PowerShell ISE). Simply press CTRL+B to invoke the debugger while a...

Many of the PowerShell commands are made out of functions. Here is how you can peek into the source code of any function: (Get-Command...

You may have heard about "type accelerators": they are shortcuts for the long .NET type name: PS> [XML] IsPublic IsSerial Name BaseType...

Beginning with PowerShell 3.0, there is a new feature called "Automatic Unrolling": when you specify a property or method on an array, then the...

In PowerShell 4.0 and better, there is a new alternative to the Where-Object cmdlet: $all = Get-Service $all | Where-Object { $_.Status -eq...

In a previous tip we explained how you can clone an existing XML item to add a new item. This works only when there are already some items in the...

Removing items from an XML document is almost trivial: you use XPath to identify the node you want to remove, then remove it. Once you save the XML...

If you need to add new items to an XML document that already contains such items, the easiest way is to search for an existing item, then clone it....

You can use Select-Xml to select content from an XML file, and then change or update its values. This is very powerful. You just need to get...

If you need to make changes to an existing XML document, for example to update inventory data, the easiest way is to load the document into an XML...

Reading XML formatted text is easy when you use an XML object for it. With its method Load(), you can read in content from a file path or a URL. In...

Today we start a little mini series about XML. To create sample data to play with, you will first create a well-formed XML. While you can create XML...

When you work in a global environment, it sometimes becomes necessary to translate the local time to UTC (Universal Time). The conversion is done by...

String concatenation is a frequent thing in scripts but when you use the "+=" operator to append text to a string, this slows down your...

If you need to parse a date or time information out of raw text, and if the date and time format does not adhere to the standards of your operating...

The "+=" operator is pretty convenient and can add new elements to an array. If you need this more than once, for example in a loop, then...

Sometimes you may have played around with the interactive PowerShell and suddenly realized that some of the commands you played with were pretty...

Ever wanted to compare software versions? If you do it like this, the result is off: PS> '3.12.11.100' -gt '11.1.22.91' True...

In a previous tip you have seen how an endless loop can be used to continuously monitor things - until PowerShell is closed, or a user presses...