Using the Format-List Cmdlet
Displaying Data as a List
Many cmdlets (Get-Service, to name one) are designed to display retrieved information in the form of a table. There may be times, however, when you would prefer to have information displayed as a list (particularly if the resulting table has too many columns to fit nicely on the screen). As you might expect, the Format-List cmdlet is here to help you display information as a list.
To begin with, here’s what the default output for the Get-Service cmdlet looks like:
Status Name DisplayName
------ ---- -----------
Running AdobeActiveFile... Adobe Active File Monitor V4
Stopped Alerter Alerter
Running ALG Application Layer Gateway Service
And here’s what the output looks like when it gets piped through Format-List:
Name : Spooler
DisplayName : Print Spooler
Status : Running
DependentServices : {}
ServicesDependedOn : {RPCSS}
CanPauseAndContinue : False
CanShutdown : True
CanStop : True
ServiceType : Win32OwnProcess, InteractiveProcess
As you can see, the default formatter in Windows PowerShell displays just three property values in a table any time you call Get-Service. One way to get at all the available properties and their values is to call Get-Service and then pipe the output through Format-List.
That’s a good question: how do we pipe output through Format-List? Here’s how:
Get-Service | Format-List
It’s that easy.
| Format-List Aliases |
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