Examples of Windows PowerShell Select-Object
PowerShell’s Select-Object is ideal for filtering properties before you output them to file, printer or even read them on-screen. Perhaps the underlying command produces too much information, with Select-Object you can reduce the number of columns passed to the next element, Format-Table or Out-File.
Topics for PowerShell Select-Object
- Example: Choose Properties Returned by Get-Process
- Researching Select-Object’s Parameters
- Comparing the Speed of Select-Object with Format-Table
- Select-String (Sister Command)
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Introduction to PowerShell Select-Object
Example: Choose Properties Returned by Get-Process
Let us assume that you want to list the computer’s running processes sorted by CPU usage. The point of piping the output of the ‘Sort’ phrase into Select-Object is that you get to choose which properties are displayed. Incidentally, selecting the properties also means that you get to choose the order, in this case, I like the name of the process in the first column.
# PowerShell Select-Object Example
Clear-Host
Get-Process | Sort-Object cpu -descending | `
Select-Object Name, cpu, handles, workingset
Note 1: You can shorten Select-Object to plain ‘Select’, this is because PowerShell has an alias of that name.
Note 2: For this particular job I prefer to use Format-Table because I can achieve the same result and in addition employ -auto to tighten up the columns.
# PowerShell comparing Select-Object with Format-Table
Clear-Host
Get-Process | Sort-Object cpu -descending | `
Format-Table Name, cpu, handles, workingset -auto
Conclusion: What can Select-Object do that Format-Table cannot? Let investigate the parameters with Get-Help.
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Researching Select-Object’s Parameters
To see the full list of parameters call for Get-Help
# PowerShell Select-Object Parameters
Clear-Host
Get-Help Select-Object -full
Result: Help reveals that Select-Object has parameters which are not be available if you used Format-Table, for example, -first, -last -expand, -skip and -unique.
# PowerShell Select-Object Parameters
Clear-Host
Get-Process | Sort-Object cpu -descending | `
Select-Object name, cpu, handles, workingset -first 10
Comparing the Speed of Select-Object with Format-Table
Let us try an experiment; we will measure the time it takes to complete the same task but with one difference, filtering with Select-Object or FT (Format-Table).
Experiment A: Format-Table Speed Test
# PowerShell comparing the speed of Format-Table with Select
Clear-Host
Measure-Command {
Get-Process | Sort-Object WorkingSet -descending | `
Format-Table Name, cpu, handles, workingset -auto
}
Result: 75 TotalMilliseconds (fastest of 3 to compensate for caching)
Experiment B: Select-Object Speed Test
# PowerShell Select-Object Speed Test
Clear-Host
Measure-Command{
Get-Process | Sort-Object WorkingSet -descending | `
Select-Object Name, cpu, handles, workingset
}
Result: 28 TotalMilliseconds (fastest of 3 to compensate for caching)
Conclusion: Select-Object is much faster than Format-Table, consequently I only use Format-Table when I need the -Auto feature.
See more on PowerShell’s Measure-Object cmdlet »
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Other Uses of Select in PowerShell Cmdlet
There are two other ways that PowerShell uses ‘Select’.
Perhaps the most common way is to employ Select in a WMI Query Language (WQL) statement. Such Get-WmiObject examples which use ‘-query’ to introduce a classic ‘Select *’ phrase.
The second context for ‘Select’ in PowerShell is Select-String. This cmdlet not only opens a file, but also checks for a word, a phrase, or in fact any pattern match.
More PowerShell Object Cmdlets
You can use Get-Command to research more of PowerShell's 'Object' family. All you need to do is append the -Noun parameter. Incidentally, you could also try -Verb Select.
Clear-Host
Get-Command -Noun Object
- Compare-Object
- ForEach-Object
- Group-Object
- Measure-Object
- New-Object
- Select-Object
- Sort-Object
- Tee-Object
- Where-Object
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See more PowerShell examples for syntax
• PowerShell Home • Syntax • ISE (GUI) • Pipeline • Format-Table • Select-Object
• Compare-Object • Compare-Object (Registry) • Group-Object • Sort-Object • Foreach
Please email me if you have a better example script. Also please report any factual mistakes, grammatical errors or broken links, I will be happy to correct the fault.
