Object Utilities

Now that you understand that the PowerShell pipeline transports objects, this section covers the fundamental “utility” cmdlets that you will use constantly to interact with those objects. These are the primary tools for filtering, sorting, selecting, and analyzing data as it flows through the pipeline.

Mastering these core utilities is the key to unlocking the real power of PowerShell for data manipulation and automation. The cmdlets covered in this section are:

• Select-Object: Used to select a specific number of objects or to select specific properties from objects.
• Where-Object: Used to filter a collection of objects based on their property values.
• Sort-Object: Used to sort objects based on the values of one or more of their properties.
• Measure-Object: Used to perform calculations (such as count, sum, average) on a collection of objects.