How *should* I be filtering powershell command output? [closed]

Question

I've started a new job working for a firm that uses a full windows stack. I feel like I've gone backwards in terms of productivity, not because Windows is less powerful, but because I'm just really unfamiliar with the environment. I find myself constantly banging my head against Powershell, throwing up my hands, and banging out whatever it was I was trying to do in Cygwin. I feel like this is a dirty solution, and would prefer to get comfortable in the proper Windows environment.

With that said, how should a beginner like myself be searching through get-command's output for general cmdlets I'd like to perform? I understand I should be thinking in an object space, so is there an elegant way to search through the properties presented so I can do things like, say, find out if there is an alias for a particular cmdlet, or to search if a cmdlet is even available? (was looking for a symlink cmdlet, and would prefer to stay in the cmdline over googling if possible).

The lack of grep/piping is driving me crazy. I must be missing something, any advice given my predicament?

Answer 1

Ok heres some things I wish I had known when starting PowerShell:

To check if a command exists you could do something like this:

Get-Command *Item*

To see what properties an object has you can do something like this:

$Items = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\
$Items | Get-Member  

To see if there is an alias for something you can use:

Get-Alias -Definition Get-ChildItem

Finally to see how to use a command you can use:

Get-Help Get-ChildItem

Also PowerShells Pipline is one of its strongest selling points, you do know about the "|" pipe symbol right?

Answer 2

I'm going to use the abbreviated forms, assuming you're typing at the command line and want speed. In a script, I like full names for maintainability.

find out if there is an alias for a particular cmdlet

This works, but I can never remember it:

PS> gal -def get-childitem

so I use a query instead:

PS> gal | ? { $_.Definition -eq "Get-ChildItem" }

? is an alias for Where-Object, so that is how you filter output.

search if a cmdlet is even available? (was looking for a symlink cmdlet, and would prefer to stay in the cmdline over googling if possible).

I might try:

PS> help *link*

But I often go to Google, which returned me to StackOverflow (of course!) http://stackoverflow.com/questions/894430/powershell-hard-and-soft-links