Query output of Azure PowerShell

The results of each Azure PowerShell cmdlet are an Azure PowerShell object. Even cmdlets that aren't explicitly Get- operations might return a value that can be inspected, to give information about a resource that was created or modified. While most cmdlets return a single object, some return an array that should be iterated through.

Usually, you query output from Azure PowerShell with the Select-Object cmdlet. Output can be filtered with Where-Object.

Select simple properties

In the default table format, Azure PowerShell cmdlets don't display all their available properties. You can get the full properties using the Format-List cmdlet, or by piping output to Select-Object -Property *:

Get-AzVM -Name TestVM -ResourceGroupName TestGroup |
  Select-Object -Property *

ResourceGroupName        : TESTGROUP
Id                       : /subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/TESTGROUP/providers/Micro
                           soft.Compute/virtualMachines/TestVM
VmId                     : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
Name                     : TestVM
Type                     : Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines
Location                 : westus2
LicenseType              :
Tags                     : {}
AvailabilitySetReference :
DiagnosticsProfile       :
Extensions               : {}
HardwareProfile          : Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute.Models.HardwareProfile
InstanceView             :
NetworkProfile           : Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute.Models.NetworkProfile
OSProfile                : Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute.Models.OSProfile
Plan                     :
ProvisioningState        : Succeeded
StorageProfile           : Microsoft.Azure.Management.Compute.Models.StorageProfile
DisplayHint              : Compact
Identity                 :
Zones                    : {}
FullyQualifiedDomainName :
AdditionalCapabilities   :
RequestId                : 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000
StatusCode               : OK

Once you know the names of the properties that you're interested in, you can use those property names with Select-Object to get them directly:

Get-AzVM -Name TestVM -ResourceGroupName TestGroup |
  Select-Object -Property Name, VmId, ProvisioningState

Name   VmId                                 ProvisioningState
----   ----                                 -----------------
TestVM 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 Succeeded

Output from using Select-Object is always formatted to display the requested information. To learn about using formatting as part of querying cmdlet results, see Format Azure PowerShell cmdlet output.

Select nested properties

Some properties in Azure PowerShell cmdlet output use nested objects, like the StorageProfile property of Get-AzVM output. To get a value from a nested property, provide a display name and the full path to the value you want to inspect as part of a dictionary argument to Select-Object:

Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName TestGroup |
  Select-Object -Property Name, @{label='OSType'; expression={$_.StorageProfile.OSDisk.OSType}}

Name     OSType
----     ------
TestVM    Linux
TestVM2   Linux
WinVM   Windows

Each dictionary argument selects one property from the object. The property to extract must be part of an expression.

Filter results

The Where-Object cmdlet allows you to filter the result based on any property value, including nested properties. The next example shows how to use Where-Object to find the Linux VMs in a resource group.

Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName TestGroup |
  Where-Object {$_.StorageProfile.OSDisk.OSType -eq 'Linux'}

ResourceGroupName    Name Location          VmSize OsType        NIC ProvisioningState Zone
-----------------    ---- --------          ------ ------        --- ----------------- ----
TestGroup          TestVM  westus2 Standard_D2s_v3  Linux  testvm299         Succeeded
TestGroup         TestVM2  westus2 Standard_D2s_v3  Linux testvm2669         Succeeded

You can pipe the results of Select-Object and Where-Object to each other. For performance purposes, it's always recommended to put the Where-Object operation before Select-Object:

Get-AzVM -ResourceGroupName TestGroup |
  Where-Object {$_.StorageProfile.OsDisk.OsType -eq 'Linux'} |
  Select-Object -Property Name, VmID, ProvisioningState

Name    VmId                                  ProvisioningState
----    ----                                  -----------------
TestVM  00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000  Succeeded
TestVM2 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000  Succeeded