How to Read Help Files (Part 6 of 7)

As I promised yesterday, here are a few tips and tricks for help files based on cmdlets.

As you invest more heavily into PowerShell and you read the help files, you may get to the point that you will realize which cmdlet to use and what the parameter is you need, but you cannot remember how to use the parameter. Get-Help can focus on the specific parameter of a cmdlet.

Get-Help Stop-Process –Parameter ID

PS C:\> Get-Help Stop-Process –Parameter ID

-Id

Specifies the process IDs of the processes to be stopped. To specify multiple IDs, use commas to separate the IDs. To find the PID of a process, type

"get-process". The parameter name ("Id") is optional.

Required? true

Position? 1

Default value none

Accept pipeline input? true (ByPropertyName)

Accept wildcard characters? false

This displays the full help file for the –ID parameter of Stop-Process. If you just want the parameter section of the help file type:

Get-Help Stop-Process –Parameter *

If you want just the examples:

Get-Help Stop-Process –Examples

If you would like to keep multiple help files open in a searchable window, try this:

Get-Help Stop-Process –ShowWindow

Also, if you prefer and online help file in a web browser:

Get-Help Stop-Process –Online

This is it for help on cmdlets. Tomorrow we will look at more ways to use Get-Help

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