<\/p>\n
Did you realize that Format-Table had a parameter -GroupBy? This tells Format-Table to generate a series of tables instead of a single table. The best way to get this in focus is to show an example. <\/p>\n
\nFor the purposes of this blog entry, I’m going to use the aliases GSV for Get-Service and FT for Format-Table. Also, I don’t want too much data for the examples so I’m going to leverage the fact that GSV supports wildcards and specify s[p-z]* which says give me all the services that start with “s” and whose second character is between “p” and “z” inclusive. There is nothing special about this, I just did some quick experimentation and that seemed to produce a reasonable dataset for this blog (and it allows me to show off wildcarding in GSV \ud83d\ude42 ).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
First let’s look at the output of GSV and then explore what additional information is available:<\/p>\n
PS> gsv s[p-z]* |ft<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>Spooler <\/span>Print Spooler
Stopped <\/span>SQLBrowser <\/span>SQL Server Browser
Stopped <\/span>SQLWriter <\/span>SQL Server VSS Writer
Running <\/span>SRUserService <\/span>IT Connection Manager
Running <\/span>SSDPSRV <\/span>SSDP Discovery
Running <\/span>stisvc <\/span>Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Stopped <\/span>swprv <\/span>Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Prov…
Running <\/span>SysMain <\/span>Superfetch<\/p>\nPS> gsv s[p-z]* |Get-Member -MemberType Property<\/p>\n
<\/span>TypeName: System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController<\/p>\n
Name <\/span>MemberType Definition
—- <\/span>———- ———-
CanPauseAndContinue Property <\/span>System.Boolean CanPauseAndContinue {get;}
CanShutdown <\/span>Property <\/span>System.Boolean CanShutdown {get;}
CanStop <\/span>Property <\/span>System.Boolean CanStop {get;}
Container <\/span>Property <\/span>System.ComponentModel.IContainer Containe…
DependentServices <\/span>Property <\/span>System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController[]…
DisplayName <\/span>Property <\/span>System.String DisplayName {get;set;}
MachineName <\/span>Property <\/span>System.String MachineName {get;set;}
ServiceHandle <\/span>Property <\/span>System.Runtime.InteropServices.SafeHandle…
ServiceName <\/span>Property <\/span>System.String ServiceName {get;set;}
ServicesDependedOn <\/span>Property <\/span>System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController[]…
ServiceType <\/span>Property <\/span>System.ServiceProcess.ServiceType Service…
Site <\/span> <\/span>Property <\/span>System.ComponentModel.ISite Site {get;set;}
Status <\/span>Property <\/span>System.ServiceProcess.ServiceControllerSt…<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Notice that the ServiceController objects emitted by Get-Service (GSV) contain the field ServiceType <\/strong>. Let’s do this again but this time have Format-Table Group the services by ServiceType:<\/p>\n
PS> gsv s[p-z]* |ft -GroupBy ServiceType<\/p>\n
<\/span>ServiceType: Win32OwnProcess, InteractiveProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span> <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>Spooler <\/span>Print Spooler<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32OwnProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Stopped <\/span>SQLBrowser <\/span>SQL Server Browser
Stopped <\/span>SQLWriter <\/span>SQL Server VSS Writer
Running <\/span>SRUserService <\/span>IT Connection Manager<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32ShareProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>SSDPSRV <\/span>SSDP Discovery<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32OwnProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>stisvc <\/span>Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Stopped <\/span>swprv <\/span>Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Prov…<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32ShareProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>SysMain <\/span>Superfetch<\/p>\nNow you get a series of tables. <\/p>\n
But wait. Take a close look at those tables. Notice that you have 2 tables for both Win32ShareProcess and Win32OwnProcess. The reason for that is that is that Format-Table (ft) is STREAM-ORIENTED. By that I mean that it gets an object and processes it and then moves on to the next. It does that so that it doesn’t have to keep all the objects in memory. When it is done with the object, it is done with the object. <\/p>\n
\nThe only exception to this is when you specify -AutoSize . This tells Format-Table to collect all the objects and calculate the optimal column widths.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
So the results we got are not quite what we wanted. The solution is to sort the object stream prior to sending it to Format-Table (Yes yes yes – let me preempt the question – given these semantics we could have chosen to do the sort in Format-Table. The reason we didn’t is that it would be wasteful if the stream was already properly sorted). So lets see what that looks like:<\/p>\n
PS> gsv s[p-z]* |Sort ServiceType |ft -GroupBy ServiceType<\/p>\n
<\/span>ServiceType: Win32OwnProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Stopped <\/span>SRUserService <\/span>IT Connection Manager
Running <\/span>stisvc <\/span>Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)
Stopped <\/span>swprv <\/span>Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Prov…
Stopped <\/span>SQLBrowser <\/span>SQL Server Browser
Stopped <\/span>SQLWriter <\/span>SQL Server VSS Writer<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32ShareProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>SysMain <\/span>Superfetch
Running <\/span>SSDPSRV <\/span>SSDP Discovery<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32OwnProcess, InteractiveProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>Spooler <\/span>Print Spooler<\/p>\nNow that is much better but notice that within a table, things are not sorted by Status. No problem. Did you realize that sort can do a multi-key sort? After we sort by Status, we’ll figure out that we also want it sorted by Name as well so let’s do it all at once shall we?<\/p>\n
PS> gsv s[p-z]* |Sort ServiceType,Status,Name |ft -GroupBy ServiceType<\/p>\n
<\/span>ServiceType: Win32OwnProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Stopped <\/span>SQLBrowser <\/span>SQL Server Browser
Stopped <\/span>SQLWriter <\/span> <\/span>SQL Server VSS Writer
Stopped <\/span>SRUserService <\/span>IT Connection Manager
Stopped <\/span>swprv <\/span>Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Prov…
Running <\/span>stisvc <\/span>Windows Image Acquisition (WIA)<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32ShareProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span> <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>SSDPSRV <\/span>SSDP Discovery
Running <\/span>SysMain <\/span>Superfetch<\/p>\n<\/span>ServiceType: Win32OwnProcess, InteractiveProcess<\/p>\n
Status <\/span>Name <\/span>DisplayName
—— <\/span>—- <\/span>———–
Running <\/span>Spooler <\/span>Print Spooler<\/p>\nCheers! <\/p>\n
Jeffrey Snover [MSFT]
Windows PowerShell\/MMC Architect
Visit the Windows PowerShell Team blog at: http:\/\/blogs.msdn.com\/PowerShell<\/a>
Visit the Windows PowerShell ScriptCenter at: http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/technet\/scriptcenter\/hubs\/msh.mspx<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did you realize that Format-Table had a parameter -GroupBy? This tells Format-Table to generate a series of tables instead of a single table. The best way to get this in focus is to show an example. For the purposes of this blog entry, I’m going to use the aliases GSV for Get-Service and FT for […]<\/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-8811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"
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