20 Facts About PowerShell

1.

PowerShell is a task automation and configuration management program from Microsoft, consisting of a command-line shell and the associated scripting language.

FactSnippet No. 674,788
2.

PowerShell provides a hosting API with which the PowerShell runtime can be embedded inside other applications.

FactSnippet No. 674,789
3.

PowerShell includes its own extensive, console-based help accessible via the Get-Help cmdlet.

FactSnippet No. 674,790
4.

On 25 April 2006, not long after the initial Monad announcement, Microsoft announced that Monad had been renamed Windows PowerShell, positioning it as a significant part of its management technology offerings.

FactSnippet No. 674,791
5.

Key design tactic for PowerShell was to leverage the large number of APIs that already existed in Windows, Windows Management Instrumentation,.

FactSnippet No. 674,792
6.

However, PowerShell's language was influenced by PHP, Perl, and many other existing languages.

FactSnippet No. 674,793
7.

PowerShell provides an interactive command-line interface, where the commands can be entered and their output displayed.

FactSnippet No. 674,794
8.

PowerShell enables the creation of aliases for cmdlets, which PowerShell textually translates into invocations of the original commands.

FactSnippet No. 674,795
9.

Whenever a cmdlet runs, PowerShell invokes these methods in sequence, with ProcessRecord being called if it receives pipeline input.

FactSnippet No. 674,796
10.

PowerShell invokes the mutator with the parameter value or pipeline input, which is saved by the mutator implementation in class variables.

FactSnippet No. 674,797
11.

Windows PowerShell includes various cmdlets for managing various Windows systems, including the file system, or using Windows Management Instrumentation to control Windows components.

FactSnippet No. 674,798
12.

Windows PowerShell includes a dynamically typed scripting language which can implement complex operations using cmdlets imperatively.

FactSnippet No. 674,799
13.

PowerShell provides special variables, such as $args, which is an array of all the command line arguments passed to a function from the command line, and $_, which refers to the current object in the pipeline.

FactSnippet No. 674,800
14.

The PowerShell scripting language evaluates arithmetic expressions entered on the command line immediately, and it parses common abbreviations, such as GB, MB, and KB.

FactSnippet No. 674,801
15.

However, PowerShell allows for advanced functions that support named parameters, positional parameters, switch parameters and dynamic parameters.

FactSnippet No. 674,802
16.

PowerShell can be configured to silently resume execution, without actually throwing the exception; this can be done either on a single command, a single session or perpetually.

FactSnippet No. 674,803
17.

PowerShell scripting language supports binary prefix notation similar to the scientific notation supported by many programming languages in the C-family.

FactSnippet No. 674,804
18.

One can use PowerShell embedded in a management application, which uses the PowerShell runtime to implement the management functionality.

FactSnippet No. 674,805
19.

PowerShell v2 includes changes to the scripting language and hosting API, in addition to including more than 240 new cmdlets.

FactSnippet No. 674,806
20.

Many of these similar commands come out-of-the-box defined as aliases within PowerShell, making it easy for people familiar with other common shells to start working.

FactSnippet No. 674,807