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PowerShell essentials

Discover commands, inspect objects, filter pipelines and work with text and JSON.

32 entries

Discover the environment

Version information: $PSVersionTable
Distinguishes edition and version. [2]
Find matching commands: Get-Command *Service*
Lists available commands matching the pattern. [2]
Command help: Get-Help Get-Process
Help depth depends on installed help content. [2]
Help examples: Get-Help Get-Process -Examples
Uses the installed help examples. [2]
List command parameters: (Get-Command Get-Process).Parameters.Keys
Inspects the available parameter names. [2]
Current location: Get-Location
PowerShell locations can use providers beyond the filesystem. [2]
List files: Get-ChildItem
Lists items in the current provider location. [2]
Change directory: Set-Location 'C:\Work'
This sample Windows path must exist. [2]

Running processes: Get-Process
Produces process objects. [3]
Object members: Get-Process | Get-Member
Reveals properties and methods. [3]
Choose output properties: Get-Process | Select-Object Name, Id
Keeps selected properties in new output objects. [3]
Sort by memory: Get-Process | Sort-Object WorkingSet64 -Descending
Orders by numeric working-set size. [3]
First ten results: Get-Process | Select-Object -First 10
Limits output; sorting first changes which results are first. [3]
Filter a property: Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.WorkingSet64 -gt 100MB }
$_ represents the current pipeline object. [3]
Count results: Get-Process | Measure-Object
Reports how many objects were received. [3]
Group by a property: Get-Process | Group-Object ProcessName
Groups process objects with the same name. [3]

Read text lines: Get-Content -LiteralPath 'notes.txt'
LiteralPath avoids wildcard expansion. [4]
Read entire text: Get-Content -LiteralPath 'notes.txt' -Raw
Returns one string instead of individual lines. [4]
Search file text: Select-String -LiteralPath 'app.log' -SimpleMatch 'error'
Uses literal matching rather than a regular expression. [4]
Parse JSON: '{"count":3}' | ConvertFrom-Json
Creates objects from JSON data. [4]
Serialize JSON: @{ name = 'Atlas'; count = 3 } | ConvertTo-Json
Set an appropriate -Depth for nested objects. [4]
Export selected CSV fields: Get-Process | Select-Object Name, Id | Export-Csv -Path 'processes.csv' -NoTypeInformation
Writes or replaces a local CSV file. [4]
Test whether a path exists: Test-Path -LiteralPath 'notes.txt'
Does not guarantee a later read will succeed. [4]
Join path components: Join-Path 'data' 'notes.txt'
Uses the provider's path rules. [4]

Set a variable: $name = 'Atlas'
Single quotes make a literal string. [1]
Expand inside a string: "Hello, $name"
Double quotes expand variables. [1]
Array literal: $items = @(1, 2, 3)
Wraps values in an array expression. [1]
Hash table: $record = @{ Name = 'Atlas'; Count = 3 }
Stores key/value entries. [1]
For each item: foreach ($item in 1..3) { $item * 2 }
Emits each calculated result. [1]
Boolean comparison: 3 -gt 2
Uses named comparison operators. [1]
Equality: $name -eq 'Atlas'
String equality is case-insensitive by default; -ceq is case-sensitive. [1]
Catch expected failures: try { Get-Content missing.txt -ErrorAction Stop } catch { 'Read failed' }
-ErrorAction Stop turns this nonterminating error into a catchable one. [1]

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Updated 2026-10-19PowerShell 7 · object pipelines

cheatsheetatlas.com/sheets/powershell/ · Updated 2026-10-19 · PowerShell 7 · object pipelines