Windows Powershell in Action

Product Description

PowerShell replaces cobbled-together assemblies of third-party management tools with an elegant programming language and a powerful scripting shell for the Windows environment. In the tradition of Manning's ground breaking "In Action" series, this book comes from right from the source. Written by Bruce Payette, one of principal creators of PowerShell, Windows PowerShell in Action shows you how to build scripts and utilities to automate system tasks or create powerful system management tools to handle the day-to-day tasks that drive a Windows administrator's life. Because it's based on the .NET platform, PowerShell is also a powerful tool for developers and power users.

Windows PowerShell in Action was written by Bruce Payette, one of the founding members of the Windows PowerShell team, co-designer of the PowerShell language and the principal author of the PowerShell language implementation. The book enables you to get the most out of the PowerShell environment. Using many examples, both small and large, this book illustrates the features of the language and environment and shows how to compose those features into solutions, quickly and effectively.

This book is designed for anyone who wants to learn PowerShell and use it well. Rather than simply being a book of recipes to read and apply, this book gives you the deep knowledge about how PowerShell works and how to apply it.
Product Details

* Amazon Sales Rank: #37981 in Books
* Published on: 2007-02-05
* Format: Illustrated
* Original language: English
* Number of items: 1
* Binding: Paperback
* 576 pages

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher
PowerShell in Action

Part I - Learning PowerShell This comprehensive tour of the PowerShell language and runtime introduces the language and offers a deep insight into how and why things are the way they are. Part I, covers the PowerShell language including the syntax, the type system with examples showing how each feature works.

Chapter 1-PowerShell history and a quick tour of the features of the environment.

Chapter 2-PowerShell concepts you'll need to put PowerShell to work.

Chapter 3-The PowerShell type system and its relationship to .NET.

Chapter 4-Operators and expressions including basic arithmetic, comparison and assignment, wildcard and regular expression pattern matching.

Chapter 5-Operations for working with arrays (indexing, slicing) and objects (properties and methods, output redirection, the formatting operator and PowerShell variables.

Chapter 6-PowerShell language constructs like if statement and loops.

Chapter 7-Programming in PowerShell, including functions and scripts and variable scoping.

Chapter 8-Object construction and extensions, Scriptblocks and how to extend the PowerShell language.

Chapter 9-Error handling and debugging.

Part II looks at applying PowerShell in specific technology areas and problem domains.

Chapter 10-Text processing such as basic string processing, file processing (including handling binary files) and working with XML documents.

Chapter 11-Locating, exploring and instantiating types in the .NET framework including generic types with applications including network programming and WinForms.

Chapter 12-Using the application automation models to script Microsoft Word, WMI from the command line and in scripts to inspect, update and manage a Windows system, and VBScript interaction.

Chapter 13-Security, security, security.

From the Author
Wow, I wrote a book. One moment you're a humble programming language designer and the next you're up until 2:00AM every night trying to figure out how to say "and in the next example" 500 times without being boring.

So why write it? Mostly because of PowerShell. Although PowerShell draws heavily from existing technologies, it combines them in some very novel ways. This kind of novelty leads to misunderstandings. As we showed our work to the world I found that there were a number of questions that were being asked over and over again. These questions would usually arise as a result of some prior language experience that the user had. There needed to be a way to gather this information altogether in one place.

It's astonishing was how much power comes out of the synergy of the various technologies underlying PowerShell. The PowerShell team would read people's blogs and be astonished by the creativity that was being demonstrated. This book tries to foster that creativity by conveying just how capable the PowerShell is.

And finally, this is the book I wanted to read. I love programming languages and the best books are the ones that explain not only "what" but also "why". These books give the reader something more that just technical detail. They convey a sense of the overall design and some element of the intent of the designer.

Learn PowerShell, be creative and above all, have fun.

Enjoy,

Bruce Payette

About the Author
Bruce Payette is one of the founding members of the Windows PowerShell team. He is co-designer of the PowerShell language along with Jim Truher and is the principal author of the language implementation. He joined Microsoft in 2001 working on Interix - the POSIX subsystem for Windows - then moved to the help found the PowerShell project shortly thereafter. Prior to joining Microsoft he worked at various companies including Softway (the creators of Interix) and MKS (producers of the MKS Toolkit) building UNIX tools for Windows. He lives in Bellevue, Washington with his wife, many computers and 3 extremely over-bonded and very spoiled cats.
Customer Reviews

Excellent information, great presentation5
I'm an old unix hack. Although my largest hurdle now is learning all of the various Windows services and components, this book lays out the design philosophy of PowerShell that clarifies the background mechanics of the language. I still have to learn the Windows components and objects, but with this book, I can focus on that aspect and not the language itself.

Overall, an excellent purchase that I am very pleased with.

Excellent Reference - Not for Beginners3
The book does an excellent job of detailing PS. I dutifully read through the entire Part 1 (9 of the 13 chapters) and then realized I still could not construct a basic script - the chapters did not build on each other. This was the intent of the author - he clearly states in the intro to Part 2, "Part 1 covered the Powershell language and runtime features in great detail however, those features were discussed mostly in isolation". That sentence right there is what I wished had been quoted in one of these other reviews - read it over again and decide for yourself if this is the book you want.

Unfortunately, Part 2 is not a gentle introduction and it dives into some excellent, but advanced applications of PS. I am more after some baby steps to learn PS (for perspective, I am an intermediate Python/Django/PostgreSQL user, so I'm not talking about computing/programming baby steps, just baby steps in PS).

I am glad I bought the book, but I see now I have to first learn/practice basic PS programming (looping, filtering, calling functions/methods, etc), then I can use this book for advanced detail when I get stuck. Towards that goal, I am having better luck with "Windows Powershell TFM" by Jones/Hicks.

A master piece, great read and excellent content5
I am reading many books about software development. This one is by far the best computer book that I've ever read. It starts of with the basic building blocks of powershell and ends with the Great finale of putting it all together. Wow, wow and wow. It's a feast.

By the way, I love Powershell.