Cmdlets & The Pipeline

The unique power of PowerShell lies in its structured command set (Cmdlets) and its ability to pass rich metadata between them via the Pipeline.

1. Cmdlets (Verb-Noun)

Cmdlets are specialized commands. They almost always follow a Verb-Noun pattern, making them highly discoverable.

Verb: The action (e.g., Get, Set, New, Stop).
Noun: The target (e.g., Service, Process, Item, Content).

Command	Purpose
`Get-Process`	Lists all active processes.
`Get-Service`	Lists all system services.
`New-Item`	Creates a new file or folder.
`Get-Command`	Lists all available commands.

2. The Discovery Cmdlets

PowerShell is "self-documenting". These three commands are essential for learning on the fly:

# 1. Find a command
Get-Command *service*
 
# 2. Learn how to use it
Get-Help Get-Service -Examples
 
# 3. Explore its properties (The most important command!)
Get-Process | Get-Member

3. The Object Pipeline

In text-based shells, a pipe (|) sends text. In PowerShell, it sends the entire object.

# Pass process objects to a filter, then to a selector
Get-Process | Where-Object { $_.CPU -gt 10 } | Select-Object Name, CPU

Common Pipeline Cmdlets

Where-Object: Filters objects based on a condition.
Select-Object: Picks specific properties from an object.
Sort-Object: Sorts the incoming objects.
ForEach-Object: Performs an action on each item.

[!IMPORTANT] The $_ Variable In a script block (like inside Where-Object), $_ represents the current item in the pipeline. Think of it as "the object being processed right now".

Introduction Variables & Scripting