Get-Command: List PowerShell Commands

PowerShell has an excellent command-line tool that helps you discover other PowerShell commands. It is called Get-Command.

In this tutorial, we will learn the PowerShell Get-Command cmdlet, which we can use to find other commands.

• Examples.
• Command Options.

We will start by looking at several practical examples to learn how the Get-Command cmdlet works.

Examples

List all available Cmdlets, Functions, and Aliases:

Get-Command

Using one of the following commands, you can list all commands that are installed on your computer:

Get-Command *
Get-Command -Type All

List all available cmdlets:

Get-Command -Type Cmdlet

List all functions:

Get-Command -Type Function

Find commands that have the word dns in their name:

Get-Command *dns*

Find commands whose names start with the word restart:

Get-Command restart*

Find commands end with the word computer:

Get-Command *computer

List all commands starting with the verb get:

Get-Command -Verb get

List commands that have the string event in the noun part:

Get-Command -Noun *event*

Find commands of the verb set that has the word firewall in the noun part:

Get-Command -Verb set -Noun *firewall*

List all commands that belong to the NetTCPIP module:

Get-Command -Module NetTCPIP

Find the commands that use the -ComputerName parameter:

Get-Command -ParameterName ComputerName

The following command returns the syntax of the Get-Service cmdlet:

Get-Command Get-Service -Syntax

List only the commands imported to the current session:

Get-Command -ListImported

Get the path to the executable file of the Ping command:

(Get-Command ping).Definition

Run the following command to view the full documentation of the Get-Command cmdlet:

Get-Help Get-Command -Full

Command Options

The following table lists the most common parameters of Get-Command cmdlets. You can get the list of all parameters by running the Get-Help Get-Command -Parameter * command.

-Type, -CommandType	Use this option to Specify the types of commands you want to find (e.g., cmdlets, functions, script, and aliases).
-ListImported	Displays only the commands imported to the current session.
-Module	Use this option to find commands in a specific module(s).
-Verb	Finds the commands that include the specified verb.
-Noun	Use this option to search a specific word or string in the noun part.
-ParameterName	Use this option to find commands that use specific parameters.
-ShowCommandInfo	Displays command information.
-TotalCount	Use this option to limit the number of results.

In Windows PowerShell, we use Get-Command to discover other commands. When you enter Get-Command without any option, it shows a list of all cmdlets, functions, and aliases:

Get-Command

By default, it includes all cmdlets, functions, and aliases. To list a specific type, use the -Type parameter. For example, Get-Command -Type Cmdlet list all cmdlets:

The following table shows acceptable values for the -Type parameter.

All

Alias

Application

Cmdlet

ExternalScript

Filter

Function

Script

The Get-Command supports wildcard searches. To search a text anywhere in the command name, put two asterisks (*) at the start and end of the search string.

For example, if the search term is computer, the search will return all commands with the letters "computer" anywhere in the name.

To find commands that start with a particular text put an asterisk (*) at the end of the search term.

Start the search term with an asterisk (*) to find commands ending with a particular word or text.

All built-in PowerShell commands follow the verb-noun naming format. We can search for a specific text in the verb and noun parts using the -Verb and -Noun parameters.

In the following example, we use the -Verb parameter to find all cmdlets that stop something:

Get-Command -Verb *stop*

This command gets all cmdlets that work with Windows Services:

Get-Command -Noun *service

Use the -ParameterName to find all commands that use the specific parameter(s). For example following command list all cmdlets that use the -ComputerName parameter:

Get-Command -Type Cmdlet -ParameterName ComputerName

Another important parameter is the -Module which you can use to list commands belonging to a specific PowerShell module.

Get-Command -Module NetTCPIP

In the above example, we list all commands belonging to the NetTCPIP module. You can get a list of all available PowerShell modules by running the Get-Module -ListAvailable command.

Conclusion

That brings the end of this tutorial about the Get-Command cmdlet. We learned how to use Get-Command to list PowerShell Command by looking at several examples.

In the next tutorial, we will learn the Get-Help cmdlet.