To write a value to the shell you can use the Write-Host command. It also allows you customize the console output.
$name = "Marius"
Write-Host -ForegroundColor White -BackgroundColor Black $name
To read a value from the interactive shell you can use Read-Host. This command will read a line of input from the console.
Write-Host "Please enter your age"
$age = Read-Host
Here are some common used cmdlets in Powershell:
get-help process– retrieves a list of commands available on a specific topic. For example, process
get-process– returns information on processes
get-service– returns information on the services that are installed on the computer
get-item C:\– Gets the item at the specified location
get-content C:\file.txt– returns the contents of the specified item
PowerShell, seen as an evolution of the former Windows command-line shell, offers a new way the shell interprets the commands (not as plain text but allowing more interaction). This scripting language interprets objects with methods and attributes that have have access to much of .NET Framework. For example, for retrieving the length of a string, we can call the property Length of an object of type System.String.
PowerShell also allows you to work with COM, WMI, XML and Active Directory.
A cmdlet is a lightweight command that is used in the Windows PowerShell environment
To run the simplest commands we only need the interactive shell from Windows. Type Powershell.exe. It is compatible with DOS commands and UNIX commands.
However, there are several tools that provide syntax highlighting, debugging, like PowerShell ISE or PowerGUI.