Book Image

Mastering Windows PowerShell Scripting - Third Edition

By : Chris Dent

Book Image

Mastering Windows PowerShell Scripting - Third Edition

By: Chris Dent

Overview of this book

PowerShell scripts offer a handy way to automate various chores, however working effectively with these scripts can be a difficult task. This comprehensive guide starts with the fundamentals before moving on to advanced-level topics to help you become a PowerShell Core 6.0 expert. The first module, PowerShell Core 6.0 Fundamentals, begins with the new features of PowerShell Core 6.0, installing it on Linux, and working with parameters, objects and .NET classes from within PowerShell Core 6.0. As you make your way through the chapters, you'll see how to efficiently manage large amounts of data and interact with other services using PowerShell Core 6.0. You'll be able to make the most of PowerShell Core 6.0's powerful automation feature, where you will have different methods available to parse data and manipulate regular expressions and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). After having explored automation, you will enter the extending PowerShell Core 6.0 module, covering asynchronous processing and desired state configuration. In the last module, you will learn to extend PowerShell Core 6.0 using advanced scripts and filters, and also debug issues along with working on error handling techniques. By the end of this book, you will be an expert in scripting with PowerShell Core 6.0.

Preface

Who this book is for

What this book covers

To get the most out of this book

Free Chapter

Section 1: Exploring PowerShell Fundamentals

Section 1: Exploring PowerShell Fundamentals

Introduction to PowerShell

Introduction to PowerShell

Technical requirements

What is PowerShell?

PowerShell editors

Command naming and discovery

Parameters and parameter sets

Introduction to providers

Introduction to splatting

Modules and Snap-ins

Modules and Snap-ins

Introducing modules

PowerShell Core and the WindowsCompatibility module

Introducing snap-ins

Working with Objects in PowerShell

Working with Objects in PowerShell

Enumerating and filtering

Selecting and sorting

Grouping and measuring

Importing, exporting, and converting

Operators

Arithmetic operators

Assignment operators

Comparison operators

Regular expression-based operators

Binary operators

Logical operators

Redirection operators

Other operators

Section 2: Working with Data

Section 2: Working with Data

Variables, Arrays, and Hashtables

Variables, Arrays, and Hashtables

Naming and creating variables

Variable commands

Variable provider

Type and type conversion

Objects assigned to variables

Lists, dictionaries, queues, and stacks

Branching and Looping

Branching and Looping

Conditional statements

Branching and assignment

Working with .NET

Working with .NET

Properties and methods

Static properties

Non-public classes

Type accelerators

The using keyword

Strings, Numbers, and Dates

Strings, Numbers, and Dates

Manipulating strings

Converting strings

Manipulating numbers

Converting strings into numeric values

Manipulating dates and times

Regular Expressions

Regular Expressions

Character classes

Examples of regular expressions

Files, Folders, and the Registry

Files, Folders, and the Registry

Working with providers

Item properties

Windows permissions

Windows Management Instrumentation

Windows Management Instrumentation

Working with WMI

The WMI cmdlets

HTML, XML, and JSON

HTML, XML, and JSON

System.Xml.Linq

Web Requests and Web Services

Web Requests and Web Services

Technical requirements

Working with REST

Working with SOAP

Section 3: Automating with PowerShell

Section 3: Automating with PowerShell

Remoting and Remote Management

Remoting and Remote Management

Technical requirements

Remoting on Linux

Remoting over SSH

The double-hop problem

Asynchronous Processing

Asynchronous Processing

Working with jobs

Reacting to events

Using Runspaces and Runspace pools

Section 4: Extending PowerShell

Section 4: Extending PowerShell

Scripts, Functions, and Filters

Scripts, Functions, and Filters

Introducing scripts, functions, and filters

Begin, process, and end

Param, parameters, and CmdletBinding

ShouldProcess and ShouldContinue

Parameters, Validation, and Dynamic Parameters

Parameters, Validation, and Dynamic Parameters

The Parameter attribute

Validating input

Defining parameter sets

Argument-completers

Dynamic parameters

Classes and Enumerations

Classes and Enumerations

Defining an enumeration

Creating a class

Argument-transformation attribute classes

Validation attribute classes

Classes and DSC

Building Modules

Building Modules

Technical requirements

Multi-file module layout

Initializing and removing modules

Testing

Technical requirement

Static analysis

Testing with Pester

Error Handling

Catching errors

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Using Runspaces and Runspace pools

Runspaces and Runspace pools are an efficient way of asynchronously executing PowerShell code. Runspaces are far more efficient than jobs as they execute in the same process. The main disadvantage is complexity: PowerShell does not include native commands to simplify working with these classes.

Fortunately, PowerShell is highly extensible. Two third-party modules have been created to work with Runspaces:

PoshRSJob: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/PoshRSJob
ThreadJob: https://www.powershellgallery.com/packages/ThreadJob

Both modules work with Windows PowerShell and PowerShell Core.

The PoshRSJob module is very mature and has a rich set of features. It is the most frequently recommended module, providing an alternative to the Start-Job command.

ThreadJob has promise; it interacts with the existing job commands, such as Get-Job, Wait...