Get-Member for object inspection in PowerShell

Introduction

Get-Member helps you see what properties and methods an object has. It is like looking inside a box to know what tools you can use.

When you want to know what information a command returns.

When you want to find out what actions you can do with an object.

When you are learning a new command and want to explore its output.

When you want to check the type of an object and its details.

When you want to filter or select specific properties from an object.

Syntax

PowerShell

Get-Member [-InputObject <PSObject>] [-MemberType <string[]>] [-Name <string[]>] [<CommonParameters>]

You usually pipe an object to Get-Member like: object | Get-Member

MemberType lets you filter what you want to see, like Properties or Methods.

Examples

Shows all properties and methods of the process objects returned by Get-Process.

PowerShell

Get-Process | Get-Member

Shows only the properties of the string object.

PowerShell

'Hello World' | Get-Member -MemberType Property

Shows details about the 'Status' member of service objects.

PowerShell

Get-Service | Get-Member -Name Status

Sample Program

This gets one process object and shows all its properties and methods so you can learn what you can do with it.

PowerShell

Get-Process | Select-Object -First 1 | Get-Member

Important Notes

Get-Member does not change the object; it only shows information about it.

You can use Get-Member to discover hidden properties or methods you might not know.

Use Select-Object to limit the number of objects before piping to Get-Member for easier reading.

Summary

Get-Member helps you explore what an object contains and what it can do.

It is useful for learning and scripting by showing properties and methods.

You use it by piping an object to Get-Member and optionally filtering the output.