When learning these, I struggled to find authoritative lists
for what cmdlets supported what hashtable keys. The man pages for cmdlets
sometimes listed them, but not often. Sometimes the man pages were wrong (for
example, the nonexistent depth= key).
Note that the name of the key can be abbreviated to any
length. For example, alignment="right" and align="right" and al="right" and a="right" are all allowed. Usually, we abbreviate to just the first letter.
The name= and label= keys are synonyms. Use whichever you prefer.
Summary
| Cmdlet | name | expression | ascending, descending |
width | formatstring | alignment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Select-Object | ||||||
| -Property | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Sort-Object | ||||||
| -Property | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ ¹ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Format-Table | ||||||
| -Property | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| -GroupBy | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ ² | ✗ |
| Format-List | ||||||
| -Property | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| -GroupBy | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ ² | ✗ |
| Format-Wide | ||||||
| -Property | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| -GroupBy | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ ² | ✗ |
Notes
¹ If you use both ascending= and descending= then the descending value takes precedence.
² The display of the grouping does not, however, seem to honour the format string.
Select-Object
The –Property parameter supports: name/label = "string"; expression = {script block}
Get-Process `
Get-Process `
| Select-Object `
-Property `
@{name="Taskname";expression={$PSItem.Name}}, `
@{n="PID";e={$PSItem.Id}}
Sort-Object
The –Property parameter supports: expression = {script block}; ascending = Boolean; descending = Boolean
Get-Process `
| Sort-Object `
-Property `
@{expression={$PSItem.Name};descending=$true}, `
@{e={$PSItem.Handles};ascending=$true}
Format-Table
The –Property parameter supports: name/label = "string"; expression = {script block}; width = Int; formatstring = ".NET format string"; alignment = "left" | "center" | "right”
The –GroupBy parameter supports: name/label = "string"; expression = {script block}; formatstring = ".NET format string"
Get-Process `
| Format-Table `
-Property `
@{n="Process Name";e={$PSItem.ProcessName};width=50}, `
@{n="WS (MB)";e={$PSItem.ws/1MB};alignment="left";formatstring="n2";width=12}, `
@{n="VM (MB)";e={$PSItem.vm/1MB};a="left";f="n2";w=12}
Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property @{e={$PSItem.Threads.count}} `
| Format-Table `
-GroupBy `
@{n="Threads";e={$PSItem.Threads.count};f="n1"} `
-Property `
@{n="Process Name";e={$PSItem.ProcessName};w=50}, `
@{n="WS (MB)";e={$PSItem.ws/1MB};a="left";f="n2";w=12}, `
@{n="VM (MB)";e={$PSItem.vm/1MB};a="left";f="n2";w=12}
Format-List
The –Property and –GroupBy parameters support: name/label = "string"; expression = {script block}; formatstring = ".NET format string"
Get-Process `
| Format-List `
-Property `
@{n="Process Name";e={$PSItem.processname}},
@{n="WS (MB)";e={$PSItem.ws/1MB};formatstring="n2"} ,
@{n="VM (MB)";e={$PSItem.vm/1MB};f="n2"}
Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property @{e={$PSItem.Threads.count}} `
| Format-List `
-GroupBy `
@{n="Threads";e={$PSItem.Threads.count};f="n1"} `
-Property `
@{n="Process Name";e={$PSItem.processname}},
@{n="WS (MB)";e={$PSItem.ws/1MB};f="n2"} ,
@{n="VM (MB)";e={$PSItem.vm/1MB};f="n2"}
Format-Wide
The –Property parameter supports: expression = {script block}; formatstring = ".NET format string"
The –GroupBy parameter supports: name/label = "string"; expression = {script block}; formatstring = ".NET format string"
Get-Process `
| Format-Wide `
-AutoSize `
-Property `
@{e={$PSItem.ws/1MB};formatstring="n2"}
Get-Process | Sort-Object -Property @{e={$PSItem.Threads.count}} `
| Format-Wide `
-AutoSize `
-GroupBy `
@{n="Threads";e={$PSItem.Threads.count};f="n1"} `
-Property `
@{e={$PSItem.ws/1mb};f="n2"}
Links
TechNet: about_Hash_Tables