PowerShell: Scripting & Automation Fundamentals

Ground yourself in PowerShell basics by learning syntax, cmdlet formats, variables, and reading user input within the prepared environment to write and run code.

Set up PowerShell 7 with Visual Studio Code, create a Hello World PS1, verify the PS version, and run from the command prompt to see blue output via -ForegroundColor.

Master PowerShell variables: naming with a leading dollar sign, descriptive camel case, and types like string, int, float, boolean, and object. Learn assignment, expansion, on-the-fly creation, and read-host input.

Explore aliases in PowerShell to create command shortcuts and maintain backwards compatibility, learn how dir maps to Get-ChildItem, and manage, define, and remove custom aliases.

Document code in PowerShell to explain what and why, using single-line hash comments and multiline delimiters to create human-readable notes, support debugging, and enable get help system documentation.

Master PowerShell basics: syntax, verb-noun naming like write-host, descriptive variables with a dollar sign, and common cmdlets such as get service, import CSV, and get content, plus help and aliases.

Explore how PowerShell treats everything as objects and uses the pipeline to pass data between stages, with basics on properties, methods, filtering, sorting, and comparing object sets.

Explore PowerShell objects, their properties and methods, and the pipeline that passes objects between commands. Learn using get-member, measure, and import-csv with sample data.

Master format-list and format-table in PowerShell to view object data, select properties with dash property, and switch between pipeline input and input object for tabular outputs.

Filter pipeline objects with select-object, narrow to properties, use first/last/index/skip/unique, and view properties with get-member.

Master how to use Sort-Object in PowerShell to order pipeline data by properties, with optional multiple keys, case-insensitivity by default, and a case-sensitive flag for precise results, including descending options.

Explore how the Where-Object cmdlet filters objects in the pipeline through boolean expressions and comparisons, with aliases and practical Get-Process examples.

Apply a script block to each object in the pipeline using for each object, with the percent sign alias, to filter processes and kill Microsoft Edge instances.

Master PowerShell objects, properties, and methods as data flows through pipelines. Use import CSV as a database, and apply measure-object, select-object, where, sort, foreach-object, and compare-object to manipulate collections.

Master PowerShell strings by declaring and manipulating them, exploring single and double quotes, here strings, unicode escaping, and advanced formatting, plus arrays, glob comparisons, and regular expressions.

Define strings as characters and show PowerShell's single and double quotes. Double quotes expand variables and subexpressions; single quotes stay literal, with Get-Date examples and here string later.

Explore escaping in PowerShell, using the backtick to embed characters in double quoted strings and prevent expansion. Learn how to escape dollars, quotes, new line, tabs, and Unicode.

Explore how PowerShell encodes characters with Unicode code points, converts between decimal and hexadecimal, and uses escape sequences like backtick U{41} to display capital A.

Explore PowerShell string indexing and slicing, including zero-based access and ranges like 2..4, and reversing with join. Learn string immutability, the string-vs-array distinction, and length and index concepts.

Learn to split strings into arrays and join arrays into strings using PowerShell, with delimiters, the split and join operators, and practical CSV examples.

Explore string equality tests in PowerShell, comparing exact matches and patterns with case sensitive and case insensitive options, and learn how equals, not equals, and like work.

Explore how plus and asterisk operators manipulate strings in PowerShell, enabling concatenation, repetition, and formatting with indented dashes.

Learn how here-strings enable multi-line text blocks in PowerShell, supporting XML, JSON, and HTML, and understand how single and double quotes influence expansion and open/close syntax.

Master PowerShell format strings by using templates and index-based placeholders with codes for decimals, currency, hex, binary, and date time formatting.

Master the basics of regular expressions to perform pattern matching and value extraction in PowerShell and beyond. Learn core codes like digits, spaces, word characters, and anchors.

Explore regular expressions and match groups in PowerShell, using the matches variable to access group zero and named groups like first, middle, and last names; learn phone number patterns.

Explore string methods in PowerShell, leveraging string objects and immutability to perform to upper, to lower, replace, split, contains, indexof, insert, remove, pad left, pad right, substring, and trim.

Master string operations in PowerShell by covering escape characters, Unicode, indexing, splitting, joining, and concatenation; format strings with format specifiers and explore regular expressions for data extraction across platforms.

Explore basic mathematics and order of precedence in PowerShell, master arithmetic operations, shortcuts like ++ and +=, and a range of math methods from pi to trigonometric functions.

Explore PowerShell's numeric math capabilities, including built-in operators and the math class, with binary and hexadecimal formats, integer and floating point types, and format strings for precise display.

Explore basic PowerShell math operations, including + - * / and %, with PEMDAS precedence, overflow behavior, and how mixing numbers, strings, and booleans may promote to int32 or double.

Master PowerShell's order of precedence, based on pemdas, from parentheses to arithmetic and comparison operators, and learn left-to-right evaluation, type implications, and using parentheses for clarity.

Explain shortcut operators that merge operation and assignment, such as plus equals, minus equals, times equals, and modulus equals, and describe pre- and post-increment/decrement and their effect on evaluation.

Explore static math methods in PowerShell's math class, including log, power, sqrt, trig, floor, ceiling, min, max, and magic numbers pi, e, and tau.

Explore basic mathematical operators in PowerShell, from addition to modulus, and learn how parentheses affect precedence, plus increment/decrement and plus-equals shortcuts, and built-in math methods for algebraic and trig operations.

Explore logic foundations in PowerShell, including and/or exclusive or, and evaluate true or false results. Clarify truthy and falsy, compare numbers, and master short-circuiting patterns.

Explore boolean logic in PowerShell, distinguishing true and false, truthy and falsy, and how comparisons shape conditionals, loops, and short-circuiting with the bool type ($true, $false).

Chain comparisons and master logical tests using and, or, xor (including bitwise operations), and not with clear precedence; use parentheses to disambiguate and evaluate true/false outcomes in code.

Explore numeric comparisons in PowerShell, including greater than, greater than or equal to, less than, and less than or equal to, with precedence over and/or and pre/post-increment effects.

Learn boolean short-circuiting in PowerShell, using and, or, and xor to minimize evaluation, skip unnecessary right-hand expressions, and replace certain conditionals with concise nested expressions demonstrated in code.

Summarizes how PowerShell evaluates true and false, truthy and falsy, uses Boolean logic and comparisons with parentheses, and relies on short-circuiting to minimize work.

Explore bitwise logic in modern PowerShell mastery, learning how to use masks and bit shifts to combine flags at the binary level.

Explore bitwise operations at the bit level, including and, or, xor, and not, with examples using nibbles and bytes to demonstrate per-bit results and casting.

Learn how bit shifting works in modern PowerShell Mastery, shifting bits left or right with zero fill, illustrated by binary examples and code that show bits falling off.

Conclude with bitwise operations, examining binary-level handling, including and, xor, left and right shifts, and show how binary logic—true and false—underpins computers, math, and programming.

Explore code blocks and conditionals, mastering how to use if, else if, switch, and the ternary operator with truthy and falsy logic.

Explore code blocks, or script blocks, in PowerShell and their curly braces syntax. Use them in conditionals, loops, functions, and pipelines.

Explore PowerShell conditionals with the if statement, using boolean expressions, parentheses, and curly braces. Build robust logic with else and else if chains so only the first true condition runs.

Learn the PowerShell seven ternary operator, a concise three-value conditional with a condition, a value if true, and a value if false; see simple code examples.

Use the switch statement to replace if-else chains and, with exact, wildcard, or regex modes, handle multiple matches and default cases with optional case sensitivity.

Explore the null coalescing operator in PowerShell seven, using the two question marks to return left values or defaults, and the ??= shortcut for safe defaults.

Build a solid foundation in conditionals with if statements, if-else, switch, and the ternary operator as you progress toward mastering modern PowerShell.

Explore complex variables in PowerShell by mastering arrays, including multidimensional arrays, and hash tables. Learn to use enums to create readable data types and improve code clarity.

Declare and manipulate arrays in PowerShell, including typed and untyped arrays, indexing and slicing, length and search, immutability of arrays, and mutability of their elements via pipelines.

Master arrays in PowerShell by adding elements with plus equals, which creates a new array and leaves the original unchanged; test inclusion with contains or in, and slicing and reversing.

Explore how PowerShell handles multidimensional arrays, contrasting arrays of arrays with native multi-dimensional arrays. Learn to declare, access, and inspect true multidimensional arrays using rank and two dimensional examples.

Learn how hash tables in PowerShell store unique, case-insensitive keys to values, declared with @{} and accessed via [key], with operations like contains and remove and inspecting keys and values.

Learn how enumerated types in PowerShell define a custom data type with a discrete value set, map numbers to names, and use readable values such as home type like condo.

Learn how PSCustomObject, a type accelerator in PowerShell, casts a hash table into a usable object. Access properties like make, model, and year, and use get-member and select.

Explore arrays, including arrays of arrays and multidimensional arrays, and hash tables of key-value pairs. Learn numerator types to create self-documenting code and make PowerShell more expressive.

Explore variables and type casting in this short module, examining string and number types, how casting works, and strategies for safe conversions to prevent common programming errors.

Master runtime typing in PowerShell by learning how variables adopt types, using the is operator, and interrogating types at runtime with the get type method to enforce type safety.

Explore type casting in PowerShell by performing explicit casts, using the as operator for safe conversions that yield null when they fail, and relying on implicit casting in context.

Master variable types in PowerShell by inspecting types, understanding casting, and avoiding casting errors to ensure reliable results in your PowerShell scripts.