Category: Powershell

Robert Cain is looking for a book:

The format of the Advanced API is slightly different from the simple. Here is template.

https://openlibrary.org/api/books?bibkeys=ISBN:[ISBN Goes Here]&jscmd=data&format=json"

You will replace the [ISBN Goes Here] text with the ISBN number you want to look up. Be aware this can only be digits, you must remove any spaces, dashes, or other characters.

Let’s look at a code example of calling the API and getting all its properties.

Click through for examples and how you can use Powershell to parse the results.

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Robert Cain diagnoses a weird issue:

I was having a weird problem with PowerShell, while working on my ArcaneBooks project. I would install a module, and it would work fine at first. I could see the module when I used Get-Module -ListAvailable, and use it.

The problem occurred when I closed the terminal (whether the Windows Terminal or in VSCode), then reopened it. The module had vanished! It was no longer there, I would get an error if I tried to import it, and Get-Module -ListAvailable would no longer show it. I could reinstall, it’d be there, but again when I closed the terminal and reopened it would be gone.

Read on to learn what OneDrive was doing and how Robert at least got it to stop doing that.

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Chad Callihan looks at one of my favorite features in Powershell:

We’ve all had moments of instant regret. Maybe it was missing that WHERE clause when executing a SQL statement or seeing something like “500 rows affected” when expecting only 1. These are sinking feelings we never want to experience again.

To avoid that pain, SQL Server has BEGIN/ROLLBACK/COMMIT that you can use to help check your work. Did you know PowerShell also has a helpful switch called WhatIf to preview changes before they’re applied?

This does take a bit of effort to implement in your custom modules, but the fact that the language has this concept explicitly laid out is a smart idea.

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Max Trinidad familiarizes us with objects in Powershell:

Working with PSObjects is essential to anyone using PowerShell. Especially, when there’s a need to extend the object to provide useful information.

Remember, the best way to get familiar with the PowerShell object(‘s)… (AKA PSOBject, .NET Object) is to use the ‘Get-Member’ Cmdlet.

Click through for several tips on how to add custom properties and learn more about what’s available on objects along the way.

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Robert Cain has been working on a neat project:

In this post we’ll begin with an overview of what an ISBN is. We’ll then talk about the website that will be the source for our data. It has two different web APIs (Application Programming Interface) that we can use. We’ll discuss one here, then in the next blog post cover the advanced version.

First though, if you haven’t read the introductory post in this series, The ArcaneBooks Project – An Introduction, I’d highly recommend doing so as it lays the foundation for why and how this project to get ISBN data originated.

Robert is building this up over a series of posts, so stay tuned.

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Jeffrey Hicks wants to know what he can do:

A few weeks ago, I was working on content for a new PowerShell course for Pluralsight. The subject was objects. We all know the importance of working with objects in PowerShell. Hopefully, you also know that the output you get on your screen from running a PowerShell command is not the whole story. Formatted presentation is separate from the underlying objects in the pipeline. That’s why it is important to know how to use Get-Member to discover how an object is defined.

But, as Jeffrey points out, this doesn’t work for static members. Read on to learn what does.

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