Skip to main content

PowerShell Help Syntax

If you are new to PowerShell or either you've been working for quite some time on Windows PowerShell one way or another you will still need to look or check the help statement.

Why would you need help on PowerShell if you consider yourself as an expert?

Well, if you can't lower your ego or pride and you have the guts to remember 2,300 or more cmdlets then you really don't to check the help statement.

As for me, Help statement  in PowerShell is always my companion.

Syntax of Help Statement in PowerShell:

Get-Help Name_of_CmdLet 

Like:

Get-Help Get-ChildItem

But to have a more detailed or helpful output.

Type:

Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Example

Above command will show examples of Get-ChildItem cmdlet.

You can also use the -detail parameter which will show examples and some description:

Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Detail

Or type:

Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Full

Basically, the parameters for help are: -Example -Detail and -Full



And another helpful command in PowerShell is Get-Alias

Aliases in PowerShell abbreviates cmdlets.

Like:

Get-Help GCI -Full 

is equivalent to: Get-Help Get-ChildItem -Full


Open PowerShell ISE or launch the PowerShell terminal.

Type: Get-Alias

It will display all the aliases, aliases  saves time for typing but could be confusing to read. But if you get the hang of it then it comes very handy. Save bytes and few type strokes.

Output below of Get-Alias is just a part of the output (it's not the whole output)

CommandType     Name      Definition
-----------             ----         ----------
Alias                    %           ForEach-Object
Alias                    ?            Where-Object
Alias                   cat          Get-Content
Alias                   cd           Set-Location
Alias                   chdir       Set-Location
Alias                   clc          Clear-Content
Alias                   clear       Clear-Host  
Alias                   clhy        Clear-History
Alias                   cli           Clear-Item  
Alias                   copy       Copy-Item  
Alias                   cp           Copy-Item  
Alias                   cpi          Copy-Item  
Alias                   del          Remove-Item
Alias                   diff         Compare-Object
Alias                  dir           Get-ChildItem
Alias                  ebp          Enable-PSBreakpoint
Alias                  echo        Write-Output    
Alias                  epal         Export-Alias    
Alias                  ft            Format-Table    
Alias                  gal          Get-Alias        
Alias                  gc           Get-Content      
Alias                  gci          Get-ChildItem  



Cheers! Hope it helps!!!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WMIC get computer name

WMIC get computer model, manufacturer, computer name and  username. WMIC is a command-line tool and that can generate information about computer model, its manufacturer, its username and other informations depending on the parameters provided. Why would you need a command line tool if there’s a GUI to check? If you have 20 or 100 computers, or even more. It’s quite a big task just checking the GUI to check the computer model and username. If you have remote computers, you need to delegate someone in the remote office or location to check. Or you can just write a batch file or script to automate the task. Here’s the code below on how get computer model, manufacturer and the username. Open an elevated command prompt and type:     wmic computersystem get "Model","Manufacturer", "Name", "UserName" Just copy and paste the code above, the word “computersystem” does not need to be change to a computer name. A...

Print error 016-799 - Fuji Film Xerox

016-799 Fuji Xerox or Fuji Film print error code. That shows a description error as “Print instruction Fail detected in decomposer.” The error code and error description are alien languages for users and even system administrators who are not familiar with Fuji Xerox error code. The error code is quite simple and easy to fix, if the job print goes to the printer but print out doesn’t come out. So, basically the print job was received by the printer, but the printer just doesn’t know what type of paper or what size to use or which tray to utilize for the print out. In some instances, this is just a paper mismatch but the error description; if using Windows 10 to print does not exactly points to what is the issue. First thing to check, is the paper size selected by the user to print. Example, if the printer configuration is A3 and A4 sizes only. But then the person printing the file accidentally chooses “A4 Cover” then this error 016-799 will occur. ...

How to check office version from command line

The are quite a few ways to check office version it can be done via registry, PowerShell or VBScript and of course, good old command line can also do it. Checking Windows office version whether it is Office 2010, Office, 2013, Office 2016 or other version is quite important to check compatibility of documents; or just a part of software inventory. For PowerShell this simple snippet can check the office version: $ol = New-Object -ComObject Excel.Application $ol . Version The command line option will tell you where’s the path located; the result will also tell whether office is 32-bit, 64-bit and of course the version of the office as well. Here’s the command that will check the office version and which program directory the file is located which will tell whether it’s 32-bit or 64-bit. Command to search for Excel.exe: DIR C:\ /s excel.exe | find   /i "Directory of"  Above command assumes that program files is on  C: drive. Sample O...