PowerShell v3 PowerShell And Its World

Okay, weird title, again, I know. In the past few weeks I have really seen a lot of scripts that go far past the prepackaged notion of a PowerShell instance into the mechanics of the  [PowerShell] object. Im just using the type accelerator here, but, underneath, the full type is  System.Management.Automation.PowerShell. As shown below, the  [PowerShell]  type accelator is the same thing as the full name.

PS>[PowerShell]

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType

-------- -------- ----                                     --------

True     False    PowerShell                               System.Object

PS>[System.Management.Automation.PowerShell]

IsPublic IsSerial Name                                     BaseType

-------- -------- ----                                     --------

True     False    PowerShell                               System.Object

So, when we work with the  [PowerShell] type accelerator, we know what we are hitting against. To get more of an idea of what lives in this namespace:

PS>[powershell].GetMembers() | ft name, membertype -AutoSize

Name                          MemberType

----                          ----------

get_Commands                      Method

set_Commands                      Method

get_Streams                       Method

get_InstanceId                    Method

get_InvocationStateInfo           Method

get_IsNested                      Method

get_HadErrors                     Method

get_Runspace                      Method

set_Runspace                      Method

set_RunspacePool                  Method

get_RunspacePool                  Method

get_HistoryString                 Method

set_HistoryString                 Method

Create                            Method

Create                            Method

Create                            Method

CreateNestedPowerShell            Method

AddCommand                        Method

AddCommand                        Method

AddScript                         Method

AddScript                         Method

AddCommand                        Method

AddParameter                      Method

AddParameter                      Method

AddParameters                     Method

AddParameters                     Method

AddArgument                       Method

AddStatement                      Method

add_InvocationStateChanged        Method

remove_InvocationStateChanged     Method

Connect                           Method

ConnectAsync                      Method

Invoke                            Method

Invoke                            Method

Invoke                            Method

Invoke                            Method

Invoke                            Method

Invoke                            Method

class="MsoNormal">Invoke                            Method

Invoke                            Method

Invoke                            Method

BeginInvoke                       Method

BeginInvoke                       Method

BeginInvoke                       Method

BeginInvoke                       Method

BeginInvoke                       Method

EndInvoke                         Method

Stop                              Method

BeginStop                         Method

EndStop                           Method

Dispose                           Method

AsJobProxy                        Method

ToString                          Method

Equals                            Method

GetHashCode                       Method

GetType                           Method

Commands                        Property

Streams                         Property

InstanceId                      Property

InvocationStateInfo             Property

IsNested                        Property

HadErrors                       Property

Runspace                        Property

RunspacePool                    Property

HistoryString                   Property

InvocationStateChanged             Event

Quite a few things live in here. Eliminating duplicates shows this narrowed down list:

[powershell].GetMembers() | select name, membertype -Unique | ft -AutoSize

Name                          MemberType

----                          ----------

get_Commands                      Method

set_Commands                      Method

get_Streams                       Method

get_InstanceId                    Method

get_InvocationStateInfo           Method

get_IsNested                      Method

get_HadErrors                     Method

get_Runspace                      Method

set_Runspace                      Method

set_RunspacePool                  Method

get_RunspacePool                  Method

get_HistoryString                 Method

set_HistoryString                 Method

Create                            Method

CreateNestedPowerShell            Method

AddCommand                        Method

AddScript                         Method

AddParameter                      Method

AddParameters                     Method

AddArgument                       Method

AddStatement                      Method

add_InvocationStateChanged        Method

remove_InvocationStateChanged     Method

Connect                           Method

ConnectAsync                      Method

Invoke                            Method

BeginInvoke                       Method

EndInvoke                         Method

Stop                              Method

BeginStop                         Method

EndStop                           Method

Dispose