WEBVTT

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>> Hello, everyone. I'm
instructor Jerry Roberts,

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and this is
PowerShell scripting.

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Now, sometimes when you're
working in PowerShell,

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you might need a little
bit of assistance.

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In this module, we're going to

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talk about how to get that.

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We're going to talk about
getting help in PowerShell.

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We're going to talk
about the helps syntax,

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some information about
parameters and piping,

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some helpful hints to
help you along your way.

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Then we're going to
switch a little bit

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over to PowerShell ISE.

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Then last but not least,

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we're going to talk about some

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additional help
that you can get.

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Getting help in PowerShell.

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There are three
commands in PowerShell

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that you can actually
use to get some help.

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There is Get-Help,

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help, and man.

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Get-Help is a built in

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CMD let that allows

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you to get information
about a command.

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Help is actually a
built-in function

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you can use to get information
about the command.

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Man is actually just
an alias for help.

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Does the exact same
thing as help,

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only it's the Linux
friendly version.

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If you're used to
working in Linux,

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you have your man
command here as well.

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The syntax for help.

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When you run a help command,

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you actually get a
couple different things

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that are returned about the
command you're looking up.

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There is a section in
here called syntax.

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This is actually very important

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because it helps
you understand how

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to use the command and how
it's actually written out.

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You'll see in the picture here,

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there's a lot of stuff.

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You'll see get-command,

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which was the one we
looked for help for.

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You'll see a lot of

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different parameters and
other things like -Name,

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-Argument list, and so forth.

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Any items in

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the square brackets are
considered perimeters.

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Again, -Name,

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-Argument list, -All, et cetera.

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Items in the less than,

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greater than brackets are
objects or parameter values.

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You can see here under name,

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it can take a string.

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You can put in values in,

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say, words or sentences.

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Items in the curly Q
brackets are usually

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a list of items that can
be valid parameters.

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If you look at command type,

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you'll see you have
alias, function,

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filter, all those other

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things that you can
put it in there.

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Items separated by a pipe,

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a representative
of multiple items

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in a valid parameter list.

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Again, when you look
at command type,

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you can see alias,
function, filter,

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etc that could all be

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valid values for that
particular parameter.

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Couple other things
about parameters.

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The help documentation actually

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does include some more
robust information,

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not just that little
list there that can

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tell you what parameters
are available.

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This information
helps you better

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understand what the
parameters are.

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That understanding
does help you write

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better commands
and scripts to do

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>> things you want to do.

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>> If you want to see
more information about

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a parameter when you're doing

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the help command or
the Get-Help or man,

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at the end of the command,

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do the dash full switch

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and this will give you
a lot more information.

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Some things you'll see when
you pull up parameters.

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How you'll actually
see datatype.

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This is just what kind of
information it can take.

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For example, when we talked
earlier about string,

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that just means it takes in
a string of values such as

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a word of sentence required.

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That means you have
to provide a value

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for that parameter in order
for the command to work.

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If it says required,

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yes, that means you need
to put something there.

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Position. Now, one of the
things about commands in

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PowerShell is in some cases

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you don't have to provide
the parameter name.

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If a value is provided in

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a certain position
in the command,

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the system automatically
knows what

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that parameter is and
doesn't need the name.

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Now, that's not all commands
and not all parameters.

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Be wary of that.

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Default value.

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Sometimes PowerShell will fill

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in a default value
for a parameter.

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If there is one, it
will show this in

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the description and give
you further information.

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Another couple of things
here that have more

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to do with how the
command works,

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except pipeline input and
accept wildcard characters.

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Pipeline input means
whether or not you can

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actually pipe something
with the command.

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Some commands don't
let you use a pipe.

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The wildcard, whether
or not you can

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use wildcards for
parameter values,

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that could be percentages or

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asterisks or things like that.

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In some cases you can use

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wildcards that does
help you find things.

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In other cases, it won't
let you use a wildcard,

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so you have to use
the full value.

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What actually is a pipe?

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Wildcards are pretty
easy to understand,

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but pipes are a little bit

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more complex when it
comes to commands.

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According to Microsoft,
pipelines act

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like a series of connected
segments of a pipe.

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Items moving along the pipeline

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pass through each segment.

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To create a pipeline
in PowerShell,

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you connect the
commands together with

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>> the pipe operator,

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>> which is the
up and down line.

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The output of each command
is used as input for

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the next command. What
does that all be?

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Basically, it just
means pipes are

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going to allow you to use
multiple commands together.

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Each command takes
the output from

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>> the previous command.

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>> An important thing
to understand is

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that command is not going to

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take the text from
the previous command,

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it's going to be the output
from the previous command.

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For example,
Get-Printers pipe FL.

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The command there is going
to get all of the printers,

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then it's going to
format it in a list.

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What will happen
is that FL there,

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that formatted list
is going to grab

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everything from Get-Printers and

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make a pretty little
list for you.

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Some helpful hints when
working in PowerShell.

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Use the up arrow to

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enumerate the commands
you've previously done.

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This is very similar
to some other

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>> command line systems.

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>> All you do is up
or down and you can

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scroll through what
you've already written.

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Use the clear command

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to clear out your
PowerShell windows.

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If you type the word clear,

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it'll clear everything
out and you'll

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start with a nice, clean
PowerShell window.

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You can also use a Tab key

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to complete commands
or Tab complete.

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This is not 100 percent
accurate, however,

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it's fairly accurate and
works pretty similar if

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you're used to the
Cisco IOS system

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or other systems like that,

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where you start
to type a command

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and you use the Tab key.

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Now, what it'll do on

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regular PowerShell is when
you hit "Tab" and it'll

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allow you to scroll through

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commands that are similar
to what you're typing.

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Now, when we get
to PowerShell ISE,

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it's a little different.

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There are actually some
better helpful things.

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Their first helpful item is the

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>> PowerShell IntelliSense.

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>> Now, if you've worked
with Visual Studio

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or some other products,

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you might be familiar
with IntelliSense.

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Basically, as a
code completion aid

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supposed to help you complete

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commands in a visual
way instead of having

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to tab through
using tab complete.

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You can see on the right-hand
side here this picture

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where we're trying
to get to command.

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It shows us a list of what kind

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of Get commands we can use.

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When you start typing more,

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it actually does make
the list shorter because

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it'll find what you're
exactly starting to type.

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When on, it's going to

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display that list based
on what you typed.

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You can see there, I only typed

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get- so there's a
whole lot of commands.

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Again, if I started
typing a little more,

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that list would tighten up.

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Another item is the
command search.

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This is actually a
really cool item

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that they have in
PowerShell ISE.

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This allows you to search for

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a command through a
list of commands.

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Pretty much you start typing
the command as you can see

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here on the right and they'll

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give you a nice little list.

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This is nice because
if you can't

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remember exactly
what a command is,

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you can actually type

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different words in the
command and will find it.

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Instead of just
IntelliSense that finds

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it based on what
you've started typing,

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if you were to type just a
word, for example, here,

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if you were to type alias,

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you would get a list of

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all the commands that
had the word alias in it

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instead of IntelliSense
where you just

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did get-a and it
found it that way.

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It's very useful.

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Allows you to do keyword
searches and things

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like that so you can find
commands little bit easier.

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If you want to use it in ISE,

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you go to View and
show command add on,

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and it shows up on the right.

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It's very useful.

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Additional help with PowerShell.

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You do have about files that

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you can access in PowerShell.

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There's also a couple of

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parameters ShowWindow
and ShowCommand.

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Give you some more information

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about what you're working with.

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The Microsoft Docs website is

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super useful for
getting help as well.

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That's
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell.

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Again,

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if you're in another country,

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go to your Countries

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Landing page for
Microsoft documents,

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which is usually just
docs.Microsoft.com.

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Then type in PowerShell
and it should bring you

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directly to the PowerShell page.

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It's post assessment time.

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If you wanted to get help
for the Get-ADGroup command,

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what command would you use?

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Would you use help
Get-ADGroup, man Get-ADGroup,

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or Get-Help, Get-ADGroup,

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or would it be all
of those above?

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You can go ahead and
pause for a second.

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Then once you're ready,
we'll get the answer.

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The answer is actually
all of the above.

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Help man and Get-Help are all

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valid commands you
can use to get

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information about a command.

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In this video, we talked

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a little bit about how to
get help for PowerShell.