Monad (AKA PowerShell)

Chapter 5. Adding to the MSH Toolkit

We covered a lot of new ground in the preceding chapters that focused on exploration in interactive mode. In the examples that follow in this chapter, we’ll step back and look at some of the plumbing of MSH that makes it all possible. We’ll cover some of the generic cmdlets in more detail, discuss how data can be persisted to and retrieved from a filesystem, and take a deeper look at exactly what a pipeline object is and how the .NET Framework Class Library can provide an extra dimension of functionality.

Extend the Toolkit with Generic Cmdlets

There are several cmdlets that keep coming up again and again: where-object, sort-object, select-object, format-table, and a handful of others. These cmdlets are simple in their design and offer almost limitless possibilities for reuse in all kinds of situations. There are several more processing cmdlets that we’ll discuss in this section that are also generic in nature yet draw strength from their simplicity.

A Cmdlet for Every Occasion

As you begin to use MSH more, you’ll quickly find yourself reaching for a handful of versatile cmdlets again and again. Depending on your usage patterns and tasks, you may find some more valuable than others. In any case, it’s useful to remember that these cmdlets, no matter how infrequently used, are out there and waiting to be put into action.

For example, if you find yourself wondering why there isn’t a cmdlet for calculating the average size of files in a directory, you ...