Finding & Filtering

Filtering Objects

The Get-Member cmdlet gets the members, the properties and methods, of objects.

# get an object along with its properties and methods
Get-LocalUser administrator | get-member

   TypeName: Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.LocalUser

Name                   MemberType Definition
----                   ---------- ----------
Clone                  Method     Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.LocalUser Clone()
Equals                 Method     bool Equals(System.Object obj)
GetHashCode            Method     int GetHashCode()
GetType                Method     type GetType()
ToString               Method     string ToString()
AccountExpires         Property   System.Nullable[datetime] AccountExpires {get;set;}
Description            Property   string Description {get;set;}
Enabled                Property   bool Enabled {get;set;}
FullName               Property   string FullName {get;set;}
LastLogon              Property   System.Nullable[datetime] LastLogon {get;set;}
Name                   Property   string Name {get;set;}
ObjectClass            Property   string ObjectClass {get;set;}
PasswordChangeableDate Property   System.Nullable[datetime] PasswordChangeableDate {get;set;}
PasswordExpires        Property   System.Nullable[datetime] PasswordExpires {get;set;}
PasswordLastSet        Property   System.Nullable[datetime] PasswordLastSet {get;set;}
PasswordRequired       Property   bool PasswordRequired {get;set;}
PrincipalSource        Property   System.Nullable[Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.PrincipalSource] PrincipalSource {ge...
SID                    Property   System.Security.Principal.SecurityIdentifier SID {get;set;}
UserMayChangePassword  Property   bool UserMayChangePassword {get;set;}

# get all object's properties
Get-LocalUser administrator | Select-Object -Property *

AccountExpires         :
Description            : Built-in account for administering the computer/domain
Enabled                : False
FullName               :
PasswordChangeableDate :
PasswordExpires        :
UserMayChangePassword  : True
PasswordRequired       : True
PasswordLastSet        :
LastLogon              : 1/20/2021 5:39:14 PM
Name                   : Administrator
SID                    : S-1-5-21-3916821513-3027319641-390562114-500
PrincipalSource        : Local
ObjectClass            : User

# filtering based on specified properties (the * is redundant)
Get-LocalUser * | Select-Object -Property Name,PasswordLastSet

Name               PasswordLastSet
----               ---------------
Administrator
DefaultAccount
Guest
MTanaka              1/27/2021 2:39:55 PM
WDAGUtilityAccount 1/18/2021 7:40:22 AM

# filtering, sorting, and grouping
Get-LocalUser * | Sort-Object -Property Name | Group-Object -Property Enabled

Count Name                      Group
----- ----                      -----
    4 False                     {Administrator, DefaultAccount, Guest, WDAGUtilityAccount}
    1 True                      {MTanaka}

User objects are typically small in size, so the need for filtering is not apparent. Service objects are the exact opposite: they contain a ton of properties that is hard to go through them all.

Comparison Operators

Expression
Description

Like

Utilizes wildcard expressions to perform matching.

Contains

Gets the object if any item in the property value matches exactly as specified.

Equal to

Specifies an exact match (case sensitive) to the property value supplied.

Match

Is a regular expression match to the value supplied.

Not

Specifies a match if the property is blank, does not exist, or is $False.

Searching Content

Select-String (sls) is similar to grep or findstr. It is NOT case-sensitive by default.

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