Get-Process outlook | format-list *<\/p>\n
The output is really extensive, and I am going to point out that one line appears like the one seen here:<\/p>\n
Threads : {7148, 8120, 5320, 3080…}<\/p>\n
I am now going to select the name<\/b> <\/i>and the threads<\/b> <\/i>properties, and pipe them to the Format-List<\/b> cmdlet:<\/p>\n
Get-Process outlook | format-list name, threads<\/p>\n
The output does not contain all of the thread information. In fact, it only has a few numbers, followed by an ellipsis. I try several combinations, but nothing other than a few numbers and ellipses ever appear. This is shown in the following figure.<\/p>\n
This behavior carries over when piping information to Export-CSV<\/b>. In the following command I use the Get-Process<\/b> cmdlet to retrieve the Outlook process. I pipe the resultant Process<\/b> object to the Select-Object<\/b> cmdlet (select<\/b> is an alias) and retrieve the name and the threads, and pipe to Export-CSV<\/b> to create a CSV file. I then open the file in Microsoft Excel.<\/p>\n Get-Process outlook | Select name, threads | export-CSV c:\\fso\\olproc.csv; c:\\fso\\olproc.csv<\/p>\n The resultant Microsoft Excel spreadsheet appears in the following figure (I highlighted the threads collection manually).<\/p>\n So, we have confirmed that for certain types of properties, Windows PowerShell does not display all the information. We seem to be a bit better off when using Format-Table<\/b> or Format-List<\/b> (but that is just an illusion).<\/p>\n The first thing we need to do is to see which type of object we are dealing with. To do this, I use the Get-Member<\/b> cmdlet. This command is shown here:<\/p>\n PS C:\\> Get-Process outlook | Get-Member threads<\/p>\n <\/p>\n TypeName: System.Diagnostics.Process<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Name<\/span> MemberType<\/span> Definition<\/span><\/p>\n Threads Property System.Diagnostics.ProcessThreadCollection Threads {get;}<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The threads<\/b> <\/i>property returns a ProcessThreadCollection<\/b>. This class is documented on MSDN<\/a>, but I do not need to really look at that article because I can find out what I need via the Get-Member<\/b> cmdlet. The big thing to keep in mind is that a ProcessThreadCollection<\/b> class is a collection of something else. This something else is a ProcessThread<\/b>. The ProcessThread class is also documented on MSDN<\/a>, and it is more interesting than the ProcessThreadCollection<\/b>. I can find the information about the ProcessThread<\/b> class by using the following command (gm<\/b> is an alias for the Get-Member<\/b> cmdlet):<\/p>\n (Get-Process outlook).threads | gm<\/p>\n The command and associated output are shown here:<\/p>\n PS C:\\> (Get-Process outlook).threads | gm<\/p>\n <\/p>\n TypeName: System.Diagnostics.ProcessThread<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Name<\/span> MemberType<\/span> Definition<\/span><\/p>\n Disposed Event System.EventHandler Disposed(System.Object, System.EventArgs)<\/p>\n CreateObjRef Method System.Runtime.Remoting.ObjRef CreateObjRef(type requestedType)<\/p>\n Dispose Method System.Void Dispose()<\/p>\n Equals Method bool Equals(System.Object obj)<\/p>\n GetHashCode Method int GetHashCode()<\/p>\n GetLifetimeService Method System.Object GetLifetimeService()<\/p>\n GetType Method type GetType()<\/p>\n InitializeLifetimeService Method System.Object InitializeLifetimeService()<\/p>\n ResetIdealProcessor Method System.Void ResetIdealProcessor()<\/p>\n ToString Method string ToString()<\/p>\n BasePriority Property System.Int32 BasePriority {get;}<\/p>\n Container Property System.ComponentModel.IContainer Container {get;}<\/p>\n CurrentPriority Property System.Int32 CurrentPriority {get;}<\/p>\n Id Property System.Int32 Id {get;}<\/p>\n IdealProcessor Property System.Int32 IdealProcessor {set;}<\/p>\n PriorityBoostEnabled Property System.Boolean PriorityBoostEnabled {get;set;}<\/p>\n PriorityLevel Property System.Diagnostics.ThreadPriorityLevel PriorityLevel {get;set;}<\/p>\n PrivilegedProcessorTime Property System.TimeSpan PrivilegedProcessorTime {get;}<\/p>\n ProcessorAffinity Property System.IntPtr ProcessorAffinity {set;}<\/p>\n Site Property System.ComponentModel.ISite Site {get;set;}<\/p>\n StartAddress Property System.IntPtr StartAddress {get;}<\/p>\n StartTime Property System.DateTime StartTime {get;}<\/p>\n ThreadState Property System.Diagnostics.ThreadState ThreadState {get;}<\/p>\n TotalProcessorTime Property System.TimeSpan TotalProcessorTime {get;}<\/p>\n UserProcessorTime Property System.TimeSpan UserProcessorTime {get;}<\/p>\n WaitReason Property System.Diagnostics.ThreadWaitReason WaitReason {get;}<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I can write the threads to a CSV file. To do this, I can use the Select-Object<\/b> cmdlet and pipe the results to the Export-CSV<\/b> file. This command is shown here (I use Select<\/b> as an alias for the Select-Object<\/b> cmdlet, and I open the CSV in Microsoft Excel by using the path to the newly created CSV file):<\/p>\n Get-Process outlook | Select -ExpandProperty threads | Export-CSV c:\\fso\\OlThread.csv;c:\\fso\\olthread.csv<\/p>\n The newly created CSV file opens easily in Microsoft Excel. This allows me to examine the various threads in Microsoft Outlook (they are all waiting by the way).<\/p>\n So the solution to having an object name showing up in the CSV file is to use the Select-Object<\/b> cmdlet to expand the object contained inside the property. Keep in mind that this will not enable you to be able to have the process name, processID<\/b>, and threads in the same CSV file because of the way Select-Object<\/b> works when expanding processes.<\/p>\n Use Export-CliXML<\/b> to maintain fidelity to the original object. The following code illustrates this technique:<\/p>\n Get-Process outlook | Export-Clixml c:\\fso\\olXML.xml<\/p>\n To work with the object, use the Import-Clixml<\/b> cmdlet as illustrated here where I import the XML file, and access the name<\/b> and the process ID<\/b>.<\/p>\n $a = Import-Clixml C:\\fso\\olXML.xml<\/p>\n $a.Name<\/p>\n $a.Id<\/p>\n I get all of the thread information by accessing the threads<\/b> <\/i>property. In the following example, I truncate the output:<\/p>\n PS C:\\> $a.threads <\/p>\n <\/p>\n BasePriority : 8<\/p>\n CurrentPriority : 13<\/p>\n Id : 7148<\/p>\n PriorityBoostEnabled : True<\/p>\n PriorityLevel : Normal<\/p>\n <***OUTPUT TRUNCATED***><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Remember back at the beginning of the article when I was talking about the ProcessThreadCollection<\/b> class? I said the ProcessThreadCollection<\/b> class was not so interesting. Well, there is one interesting property, and it is the count<\/b> <\/i>property. I can use dotted notation to access it, as illustrated here:<\/p>\n PS C:\\> $a.threads.count<\/p>\n 39<\/p>\n Knowing the number of threads a process uses is valuable information. In fact, using the technique above, I can add it to an object by using the following technique (gps<\/b> is an alias for the Get-Process<\/b> cmdlet and select<\/b> is an alias for Select-Object<\/b>):<\/p>\n gps | select name, @{LABEL=’number of threads’;EXPRESSION= {$_.threads.count}}<\/p>\n This code works, but the number of threads<\/i> is spread out everywhere (not sorted). To sort the number of threads, I pipe the command to the Sort-Object<\/b> cmdlet. My label, number of threads,<\/i> is the actual property name in my newly created custom object. This command is shown here:<\/p>\n gps | select name, @{LABEL=’number of threads’;EXPRESSION= {$_.threads.count}} | sort ‘number of threads’<\/p>\n This works great, but now the information spreads to both sides of the Windows PowerShell console window. Now, I will use the Format-Table<\/b> cmdlet (ft<\/b> is an alias and a<\/b> <\/i>is short for autosize<\/b>). <\/i><\/p>\n gps | select name, @{LABEL=’number of threads’;EXPRESSION= {$_.threads.count}} | sort ‘number of threads’ | ft –a<\/p>\n The command and associated output are shown in the following figure.<\/p>\n Of course, it would be possible to pipe this type of expression to Export-CSV<\/b>. I hope you enjoyed today’s excursions into more fun with CSV files.<\/p>\n Join me tomorrow for more cool Windows PowerShell stuff.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Summary: Learn why Windows PowerShell cannot export certain properties to a CSV file and what to do about it. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. The other day, Terry Dow posted a comment on my Use PowerShell to Work with CSV Formatted Text blog post. Basically, Terry is asking about exporting a multivalue […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[169,3,4,45,165],"class_list":["post-12081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-csv-and-other-delimited-files","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-windows-powershell","tag-xml"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":" Summary: Learn why Windows PowerShell cannot export certain properties to a CSV file and what to do about it. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. The other day, Terry Dow posted a comment on my Use PowerShell to Work with CSV Formatted Text blog post. Basically, Terry is asking about exporting a multivalue […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Image](\"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/29\/2019\/02\/8176.hsg-11-15-11-1.png\" "\\"Image")
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