Mastering PowerShell Scripting : Automate Repetitive Tasks and Simplify Complex Administrative Tasks Using PowerShell / Chris Dent.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Dent, Chris, author.

Series:

Expert insight.

Expert insight

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Microsoft Windows (Computer file).

Windows PowerShell (Computer program language).

Command languages (Computer science).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (827 pages)

Edition:

Fifth edition.

Place of Publication:

Birmingham, England : Packt Publishing, [2024]

Biography/History:

Dent Chris: Chris Dent is an automation specialist with deep expertise in the PowerShell language. Chris is often found answering questions about PowerShell in both the UK and virtual PowerShell user groups. Chris has been developing in PowerShell since 2007 and has released several modules over the years.

Summary:

Mastering PowerShell Scripting, Fifth Edition, can help you overcome any fears and become proficient in navigating PowerShell's capabilities. This edition includes new chapters on debugging, troubleshooting, and creating GUIs. You will learn about the latest features of PowerShell 7.3, including working with parameters, objects, and .NET classes. The book covers basic and advanced topics, such as asynchronous processing, desired state configuration, managing large amounts of data, interacting with other services, and working with regular expressions and Windows Management Instrument (WMI). Discover how to efficiently use PowerShell's automation features and error-handling techniques for more complex scripts and filters. Starting with foundational knowledge, this extensive guide progresses to advanced concepts like using complex scripts and filters, asynchronous processing, desired state configuration, debugging, and error-handling techniques. You will learn how to effectively handle large data sets and interact with external services using PowerShell 7.3. Additionally, you'll discover how to fully utilize PowerShell's automation capabilities, including parsing data, manipulating regular expressions, and working with WMI using various methods.

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

Contributors

Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1: Introduction to PowerShell

Technical requirements

What is PowerShell?

The command line

PowerShell editors

Getting help

Updatable help

The Get-Help command

Syntax

Examples

Parameter

Detailed and Full switches

Save-Help

Update-Help

About_* help files

Command naming and discovery

Verbs

Nouns

Finding commands

Aliases

About profile scripts

Parameters, values, and parameter sets

Parameters

Optional parameters

Optional positional parameters

Mandatory parameters

Mandatory positional parameters

Switch parameters

Parameter values

Parameter sets

Common parameters

Confirm and WhatIf

Confirm and ConfirmPreference

WhatIf and WhatIfPreference

Force parameter

PassThru parameter

Introduction to providers

Drives and providers

Introduction to splatting

Splatting to avoid long lines

Conditional use of parameters

Splatting to avoid repetition

Splatting and positional parameters

Parser modes

Experimental features

Summary

Chapter 2: Modules

Introducing modules

The Get-Module command

The Import-Module command

The Remove-Module command

PSModulePath in PowerShell

Module content

Using Windows PowerShell modules in PowerShell 7

Finding and installing modules

What is the PowerShell Gallery?

The Find-Module command

The Install-Module command

The Update-Module command

The Save-Module command

Microsoft.PowerShell.PSResourceGet

Repositories

Version ranges

PowerShell repositories

Creating an SMB repository

NuGet repositories

About snap-ins

Chapter 3: Variables, Arrays, and Hashtables

Naming and creating variables

Provider variables

Variables in strings

Variable types.

Assignment with types on the right

Assignment with types on the left

Value and reference types

Type conversion

Variable commands

Get-Variable

New-Variable

Set-Variable

Remove-Variable

Clear-Variable

Variable provider

Variable scope

Accessing variables

Scope modifiers

Numeric scopes

Private variables

About arrays

Array type

Creation by assignment

Creating an array

Arrays with a type

Adding elements to an array

List and ArrayList

Selecting elements from an array

Changing element values in an array

Removing elements

Removing elements by index

Filling variables from arrays

Multi-dimensional and jagged arrays

About hashtables

Creating a Hashtable

Adding, changing, and removing keys

Using a hashtable to filter

Enumerating a Hashtable

About Ordered

Chapter 4: Working with Objects in PowerShell

Pipelines

Standard output

Non-standard output

The Object pipeline

Members

The Get-Member command

Accessing object properties

Access modifiers

Using methods

Return types and argument types

Creating and modifying objects

Using PSCustomObject

The New-Object command

The Add-Member command

Add-Member and custom objects

Enumerating and filtering

The ForEach-Object command

Begin and End parameters

The Parallel parameter

The MemberName parameter

The Where-Object command

Selecting and sorting

The Select-Object command

Calculated properties

The ExpandProperty parameter

The Unique parameter

Property sets

The Sort-Object command

Grouping and measuring

The Group-Object command

The Measure-Object command

Comparing

Importing, exporting, and converting

The Export-Csv command

The Import-Csv command

Export-Clixml and Import-Clixml.

The Tee-Object command

Formatting

Formatting and exporting

The Format-Table command

The Format-List command

Select-Object, Write-Host, and inline output

Format-only properties

Chapter 5: Operators

Precedence, grouping, and sub-expressions

Operator precedence

Grouping

Sub-expression operator

Array sub-expression operator

Unary, binary, and ternary operators

About the ternary operator

Arithmetic operators

Addition operator

Subtraction operator

Multiplication operator

Division operator

Remainder operator

Increment and decrement operators

Comparison operators

eq and ne

like and notlike

Greater than and less than

Case sensitivity

Comparison operators and arrays

Comparisons to null

contains and in

Regular expression-based operators

match and notmatch

replace

split

Logical operators

and

or

not

xor (eXclusive OR)

Bitwise operators

band (bitwise AND)

bor (bitwise OR)

bxor (bitwise eXclusive OR)

bnot (bitwise NOT)

shl and shr (shift left and right operators)

Assignment operators

Assign, add and assign, and subtract and assign

Multiply and assign, divide and assign, and modulus and assign

Statements can be assigned to a variable

Assignment and other operators

Type operators

as

is and isnot

Redirection operators

About Write-Host

Redirection to a file

PowerShell and default file encoding

Redirecting streams to standard output

Only stdout

Redirection to null

Other operators

Comma

Index

Range

Call

Format

join

Null coalescing

Null coalescing assignment

Null conditional

Pipeline chain

Background

Chapter 6: Conditional Statements and Loops

if, else, and elseif

Assignment within if statements

Implicit Boolean.

switch statements

switch statements and arrays

switch statements and files

Wildcard and Regex parameters

Script block cases

switch statements and enums

switch, break, and continue

Loops

foreach loop

foreach keyword and foreach alias

for loop

do-until and do-while loops

while loop

Loops, break, and continue

break and continue outside loops

Loops and labels

Loops, queues, and stacks

Chapter 7: Working with .NET

Assemblies

About the GAC

Types

Type descriptions are objects in PowerShell

Enumerations

Classes

Namespaces

The using keyword

Using namespaces

Using assemblies

Type accelerators

About PSCustomObject and Ordered

Constructors

Properties

Methods

Fluent interfaces

Static methods

About the new() method

Static properties

Reflection in PowerShell

The TypeAccelerators type

The ArgumentTypeConverterAttribute type

About generics

Generic classes

Generic methods

Online Chapter

Chapter 10: Files, Folders, and the Registry

Working with providers

Navigating

Getting items

Drives

Items

Paths and .NET

Testing for existing items

Testing filesystem paths

Testing registry paths

Testing path type

Creating items

Reading and writing content

Reading and writing in a pipeline

Reading all content

Writing content

About text file encoding

Temporary files

Removing items

Invoking items

Item properties

Properties and the filesystem

Adding and removing file attributes

Registry values

Registry values and environment variables

Searching for items

Windows permissions

Access and audit

Rule protection

Inheritance and propagation flags

Removing ACEs

Copying lists and entries

Adding ACEs

Filesystem rights

Registry rights.

Numeric values in the ACL

Ownership

Transactions

File catalog commands

About hashing

New-FileCatalog

Test-FileCatalog

Chapter 11: Windows Management Instrumentation

Working with WMI

WMI classes

WMI commands

CIM commands

Getting instances

Getting classes

Calling methods

Creating instances

Removing instances

Working with CIM sessions

Associated classes

The WMI Query Language

Understanding SELECT, WHERE, and FROM

Escape sequences and wildcards

WQL filters and dates

Logic operators

Quoting values

WMI object paths

Using ASSOCIATORS OF

WMI type accelerators

Working with dates

Permissions

Sharing permissions

Creating a shared directory

Getting a security descriptor

Adding an access control entry

Setting the security descriptor

WMI permissions

The access mask

WMI and SDDL

Chapter 12: Working with HTML, XML, and JSON

ConvertTo-Html

Multiple tables

Adding style

ConvertTo-Html and Send-MailMessage

Windows PowerShell and ConvertTo-Html

Modifying HTML content

XML commands

About XML

Elements and attributes

Schemas

Select-Xml

Select-Xml and namespaces

ConvertTo-Xml

System.Xml

The XML type accelerator

XPath and XmlDocument

SelectNodes and XPathNodeList

Working with namespaces

Creating XML documents

Modifying element and attribute values

Adding elements

Removing elements and attributes

Copying nodes between documents

Schema validation

Inferring a schema

System.Xml.Linq

Opening documents

Selecting nodes

Creating documents

Working with namespaces.

Modifying element and attribute values.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Return types and argument types

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781805124153

1805124153

OCLC:

1435754725