If you\u2019ve ever worked with the Monad APIs then you\u2019ve no doubt seen a type called System.Management.Automation.MshObject. I\u2019m not going to go into all the details of what it is because that would take me more time than I have right now and there are people who can explain better than I. Suffice it to say that it\u2019s a wrapper class and that all those objects you are using in MSH are wrapped by an instance of MshObject. And because the objects are wrapped by an MshObject you can add extra information to them. For example, if you look closely you\u2019ll see that the FileInfo objects returned by get-childitem have extra information attached.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MSH>dir | get-member<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TypeName: System.IO.FileInfo<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name MemberType Definition<\/p>\n
—- ———- ———-<\/p>\n
AppendText Method System.IO.StreamWriter AppendText()<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
ToString Method System.String ToString()<\/p>\n
MshChildName NoteProperty System.String MshChildName=Add-Note.msh<\/p>\n
MshDrive NoteProperty System.Management.Automation.DriveInfo MshDrive=C<\/p>\n
MshIsContainer NoteProperty System.Boolean MshIsContainer=False<\/p>\n
MshParentPath NoteProperty System.String MshParentPath=FileSystem::C:\\monad\\ScriptTools<\/p>\n
MshPath NoteProperty System.String MshPath=FileSystem::C:\\monad\\ScriptTools\\Add-Note.msh<\/p>\n
MshProvider NoteProperty System.Management.Automation.ProviderInfo MshProvider=System.Management.Aut…<\/p>\n
Attributes Property System.IO.FileAttributes Attributes {get;set;}<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
Name Property System.String Name {get;}<\/p>\n
Mode ScriptProperty System.Object Mode {get=$catr = “”;<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Besides the regular methods and properties on the object you can see there are members called NoteProperty and ScriptProperty. Notes are like fields and properties well\u2026 like properties (they can have both a getter and a setter scriptblocks). Now that you know they are there you can go ahead and use them in your scripts. For example, say you wanted to get all the directories. Well, that note called MshIsContainer sounds like it might help.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MSH>dir | where { $_.MshIsContainer }<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Directory: FileSystem::C:\\WINDOWS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Mode LastWriteTime Length Name<\/p>\n
—- ————- —— —-<\/p>\n
d—- 7\/23\/2004 6:56 AM addins<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
d-r– 2\/15\/2005 5:39 PM Web<\/p>\n
d—- 6\/6\/2005 6:42 PM WinSxS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Perfect. We got the containers. Go ahead and check out the rest of the notes and properties. BTW, some of these notes are there to help cmdlets play nice with each other so be careful about changing their value. So where did these notes come from? Well, there are various ways that notes can get attached to your object.<\/p>\n
Programatically. A cmdlet has access to the MshObject and can add notes to it using the Members property.
Types.mshxml. Using types.mshxml you can define scriptmethods, scriptproperties and notes for particular types of objects.
Once you know the secret code, you can add them yourself!!!! Later on I\u2019ll show you some scripts that make use of notes.
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We can dive into types.mshxml at some other time (it\u2019s a big topic) but I encourage you to go and take a look at the file. Look for NoteProperty, ScriptProperty, AliasProperty (These are just aliases to another property. Arrays have aliased Count to Length). <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So how would you go about adding notes to your objects? Next time I\u2019ll show you an example of a filter that does it. Before I finish though let me mention three things so you can start playing around with MshObjects.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MshObject
MshBase
MshExtended
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Remember those three. Those three properties are on every object you use in Msh. They are usually invisible and won\u2019t show up via get-member but if you know the magic words you can access them. MshObject will give you a reference to the MshObject wrapping that object. MshBase will give you a reference to the object being wrapped without all the notes, scriptproperties, etc. And MshExtended will only return the extensions. To take a look go ahead and do the following:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MSH>$a = (dir)[0]<\/p>\n
MSH>$a.MshObject.Gettype().FullName<\/p>\n
System.Management.Automation.MshObject<\/p>\n
MSH>$a.MshObject | get-member<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TypeName: System.Management.Automation.MshMemberSet<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name MemberType Definition<\/p>\n
—- ———- ———-<\/p>\n
Copy Method System.Management.Automation.MshObject Copy()<\/p>\n
Equals Method System.Boolean Equals(Object obj)<\/p>\n
get_BaseObject Method System.Object get_BaseObject()<\/p>\n
get_Members Method System.Management.Automation.MshMemberInfoCollection get_Members()<\/p>\n
get_Methods Method System.Management.Automation.MshMemberInfoCollection get_Methods()<\/p>\n
get_Properties Method System.Management.Automation.MshMemberInfoCollection get_Properties()<\/p>\n
get_TypeNames Method System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection`1[[System.String, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Cul…<\/p>\n
GetHashCode Method System.Int32 GetHashCode()<\/p>\n
GetType Method System.Type GetType()<\/p>\n
ToString Method System.String ToString(), System.String ToString(String format, IFormatProvider formatProv…<\/p>\n
BaseObject Property System.Object BaseObject {get;}<\/p>\n
Members Property System.Management.Automation.MshMemberInfoCollection Members {get;}<\/p>\n
Methods Property System.Management.Automation.MshMemberInfoCollection Methods {get;}<\/p>\n
Properties Property System.Management.Automation.MshMemberInfoCollection Properties {get;}<\/p>\n
TypeNames Property System.Collections.ObjectModel.Collection`1[[System.String, mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0, Cul…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MSH>$a.MshBase.Gettype().FullName<\/p>\n
System.IO.FileInfo<\/p>\n
MSH>$a.MshBase | get-member<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TypeName: System.Management.Automation.MshMemberSet<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name MemberType Definition<\/p>\n
—- ———- ———-<\/p>\n
AppendText Method System.IO.StreamWriter AppendText()<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
Name Property System.String Name {get;}<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TypeName: System.Management.Automation.MshMemberSet<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Name MemberType Definition<\/p>\n
—- ———- ———-<\/p>\n
MshChildName NoteProperty System.String MshChildName=about_Alias.help.txt<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
Mode ScriptProperty System.Object Mode {get=$catr = “”;<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
MSH><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
– Marcel<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
[Edit: Monad has now been renamed to Windows PowerShell. This script or discussion may require slight adjustments before it applies directly to newer builds.<\/i>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If you\u2019ve ever worked with the Monad APIs then you\u2019ve no doubt seen a type called System.Management.Automation.MshObject. I\u2019m not going to go into all the details of what it is because that would take me more time than I have right now and there are people who can explain better than I. Suffice it to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":13641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
If you\u2019ve ever worked with the Monad APIs then you\u2019ve no doubt seen a type called System.Management.Automation.MshObject. I\u2019m not going to go into all the details of what it is because that would take me more time than I have right now and there are people who can explain better than I. Suffice it to […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}