Windows PowerShell Cookbook

Fetching remote content

Download content from the web

This will print out the markup from the index page (which could then be piped through additional commands):

> (new-object Net.WebClient).DownloadString("http://damienjay.com/")

Grep/Searching the content of files

Files in a single directory

> select-string .\*.* -pattern "\my_regexp\"

Recursive search

> gci path\to\search\root\ -rec | select-string -pattern "\my_regexp\"

Recursive search filtered by file type

> Get-ChildItem path\to\search\root\ -include *.txt -rec | select-string -pattern "\my_regexp\"
> # or, using aliases for the commands and not using "-include" ...
> gci path\to\search\root\ *.txt -r | sls -pattern "\my_regexp\"

List directory contents

Fun Things You Can Do With the Get-ChildItem Cmdlet (Microsoft TechNet)

> Get-ChildItem .\
> # or...
> gci .\
> # or...
> gci # for the current directory

Limit listing to file names

> gci path\to\directory | Select-Object Name
> # or...
> Get-ChildItem path\to\directory -name

Recursive listing

> gci -recursive
> # or...
> gci -rec

Environment variables

Displaying, creating, and modifying environment variables using Powershell CLI.

List all environment variables

> Get-ChildItem Env:
> # (or using gci alias...)
> gci env: