How to use PowerShell Get-Member cmdlet

Question

A newbie question:

The command:

[Math] | Get-Member

Returns all members of System.RuntimeType. Why is that?

Al

Answer 1

1. Using the get-help get-member command, you get this output

NAME Get-Member

SYNOPSIS Gets the properties and methods of objects.

SYNTAX Get-Member [[-Name] ] [-Force] [-InputObject ] [-MemberType {AliasProperty | CodeProperty | Pro perty | NoteProperty | ScriptProperty | Properties | PropertySet | Method | CodeMethod | ScriptMethod | Methods | P arameterizedProperty | MemberSet | Event | All}] [-Static] [-View {Extended | Adapted | Base | All}] []

DESCRIPTION The Get-Member cmdlet gets the "members" (properties and methods) of objects.

To specify the object, use the InputObject parameter or pipe an object to Get-Member. To retrieve information about
 static members (members of the class, not of the instance), use the Static parameter. To get only certain types of
 members, such as NoteProperties, use the MemberType parameter.

RELATED LINKS Online version: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=113322 Add-Member Get-Help Get-Command Get-PSDrive

REMARKS To see the examples, type: "get-help Get-Member -examples". For more information, type: "get-help Get-Member -detailed". For technical information, type: "get-help Get-Member -full".

1. From the above statement, it shows that get-member only takes in objects and not classes. You use the -Static to view the static members of an object.

2. When you use [String] without the -Static parameter, you are telling powershell that you are putting an object of type [String], however, you havent created a String object yet from any of your statement so it assumes that [String] is a System.Runtime object representing class String.This is similar if you use [Int] or [Boolean] and other class types.

3. However, if you use -Static parameter, the powershell interpreter now understands that you want the Static members of String Objects.