Control the formatting of pipeline output

  • 8 minutes

PowerShell provides several ways to control the formatting of pipeline output. The default formatting of the output depends on the objects that exist in the output and the configuration files that define the output. After PowerShell decides on the appropriate format, it passes the output to a set of formatting cmdlets without your input.

The formatting cmdlets are:

  • Format-List
  • Format-Table
  • Format-Wide
  • Format-Custom

You can override the default output formatting by specifying any of the preceding cmdlets as part of the pipeline.

Note

The Format-Custom cmdlet requires creating custom XML configuration files that define the format. It's used infrequently and is beyond the scope of this course.

Each formatting cmdlet accepts the -Property parameter. The -Property parameter accepts a comma‑separated list of property names, and then it filters the list of properties that display and the order in which they display. Keep in mind that when you specify property names for this parameter, the original command must have returned those properties.

For example, the Get-ADUser cmdlet returns only a subset of properties, unless you specify its -Properties parameter. Therefore, if you specify the City property in the -Property parameter for a formatting cmdlet, it will display as if the property isn't set, unless you make sure that the City property is one of the properties returned for the users queried.

Some cmdlets default to passing a different set of properties for each formatting cmdlet. For example, the Get-Service cmdlet displays three properties (Status, Name, and DisplayName) in a table format by default. If you display the output of Get-Service as a list by using the Get-Service | Format-List command, six additional properties will display.

Format-List

The Format-List cmdlet, as the name suggests, formats the output of a command as a simple list of properties, where each property displays on a new line. If the command passing output to Format-List returns multiple objects, a separate list of properties for each object displays. List formatting is particularly useful when a command returns a large number of properties that would be hard to review in table format.

Note

The alias for the Format-List cmdlet is fl.

To display a simple list in the console of the default properties for the processes running on the local computer, enter the following command, and then press the Enter key:

Get-Process | Format-List

Format-Table

The Format-Table cmdlet formats output as a table, where each row represents an object, and each column represents a property. The table format is useful for displaying properties of many objects at the same time and comparing the properties of those objects.

By default, the table includes the property names as the column headers, which are separated from the data by a row of dashes. The formatting of the table depends on the returned objects. You can modify this formatting by using a variety of parameters, such as:

  • -AutoSize. This parameter adjusts the size and number of columns based on the width of the data. In Windows PowerShell 5.0 and newer, -AutoSize is set to true by default. In older versions of Windows PowerShell, the default values might truncate data in the table.
  • -HideTableHeaders. This parameter removes the table headers from the output.
  • -Wrap. This parameter causes text that's wider than the column width to wrap to the next line.

Note

The alias for the Format-Table cmdlet is ft.

To display the Name, ObjectClass, and Description properties for all Windows Server Active Directory objects as a table, with the columns set to automatically size and wrap the text, enter the following command in the console, and then press the Enter key:

Get-ADObject -filter * -Properties * | ft -Property Name, ObjectClass, Description -AutoSize -Wrap

Format-Wide

The output of the Format-Wide cmdlet is a single property in a single list displayed in multiple columns. This cmdlet functions like the /w parameter of the dir command in cmd.exe. The wide format is useful for displaying large lists of simple data, such as the names of files or processes, in a compact format.

By default, Format-Wide displays its output in two columns. You can modify the number of columns by using the -Column parameter. The -AutoSize parameter, which works the same way it does for Format‑Table, is also available. You can't use -AutoSize and -Column together, however. The -Property parameter is also available, but in the case of Format-Wide, it can accept only one property name.

Note

The alias for the Format-Wide cmdlet is fw.

To send the DisplayName property of all the Group Policy Objects (GPOs) in the current domain as output in three columns, enter the following command in the console, and then press the Enter key:

Get-GPO -all | fw -Property DisplayName -Column 3