--- title: "How To Use the PowerShell Expand Property for Select-Object" description: "Discover the ins-and-outs of the PowerShell expand property for the Select-Object command in this example driven tutorial!" canonical: "https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-expand-property/" --- # How To Use the PowerShell Expand Property for Select-Object > Discover the ins-and-outs of the PowerShell expand property for the Select-Object command in this example driven tutorial! Source: https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-expand-property/ --- ATA Learning Tap to hide [ ATA Learning ](/) * [Home](/) * [Tutorials](/tutorials/) * [Instructors](/author/) * [Advertising](/advertising/) * [Recommended Resources](/resources/) * [About Adam](/about-adam/) Search for: * [](https://twitter.com/adbertram) * [](https://github.com/Adam-the-Automator) * [](https://www.linkedin.com/company/adam-the-automator-llc) * [](/feed/) ![How To Use the PowerShell Expand Property for Select-Object](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/How-To-Use-the-PowerShell-Expand-Property-for-Select-Object.jpg) # How To Use the PowerShell Expand Property for Select-Object [![](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/b4cd4a109fc359fca6ccc8a192dd75bf9a440677bb2a87da8c23f48d76b3bb39?s=192&d=mm&r=g)Edem Afenyo](https://adamtheautomator.com/author/edem-afenyo/)10 August 20225 min. read Categories: [IT Ops](/category/it-ops/) Tags:[PowerShell](/tag/powershell/) Table of Contents * [Prerequisites](#prerequisites) * [Extracting Property Object Values with PowerShell Expand Property](#extracting-property-object-values-with-powershell-expand-property) * [Creating a Set of Selected Objects with Specific Properties](#creating-a-set-of-selected-objects-with-specific-properties) * [Expanding a Collection Property with PowerShell Expand Property](#expanding-a-collection-property-with-powershell-expand-property) * [Combining Property with PowerShell Expand Property for Categorized Output](#combining-property-with-powershell-expand-property-for-categorized-output) * [Combining Format-List with PowerShell Expand Property for Verbosity](#combining-format-list-with-powershell-expand-property-for-verbosity) * [Conclusion](#conclusion) The PowerShell Select-Object cmdlet enables you to seamlessly cherry-pick objects and properties from an input group of objects. But sometimes you just have to know more. The [ExpandProperty](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.utility/select-object?view=powershell-7.2) is a switch for Select-Object that expands details about a particular property. Discover the power of the PowerShell Expand Property (`-ExpandProperty`) switch in this example-led tutorial. ## Prerequisites This tutorial will be a hands-on demonstration. If you’d like to follow along, all you need is a Windows Machine with PowerShell 5.1 and above. This article uses a Windows 10 machine with PowerShell 5.1. Related:[How to Walk Through a PowerShell 7 Upgrade](https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-7-upgrade/) ## Extracting Property Object Values with PowerShell Expand Property Log in to your Windows machine and fire up a PowerShell terminal. In this section, you will get acquainted with the `Select-Object` cmdlet and its `ExpandProperty` switch. 1\. Run the Get-Service cmdlet to get a list of all services on your system. Pipe the output to the Select-Object cmdlet to select and display only the name property of each service object, as shown below. ```powershell Get-Service | Select-Object -Property Name ``` You should now see a single column of objects representing a list of names of services on your system, as in the truncated shot below. ![Selecting the names of the existing system services](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-552.png) Selecting the names of the existing system services 2\. Run the Get-Member cmdlet at the tail end of the previous [pipeline](https://adamtheautomator.com/ppowershell-pipeline/) to confirm the type of objects that select-object returns as below. Knowing the type of object helps write functions or cmdlets to extend your pipelines. ```powershell Get-Service | Select-Object -Property Name | Get-Member ``` Related:[Getting to Know the PowerShell Pipeline and Creating Functions](https://adamtheautomator.com/ppowershell-pipeline/) Refer to the screenshot below, and you will notice that though the -Property switch outputs what appears to be a list of strings, those are the Selected list of [System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/api/system.serviceprocess.servicecontroller?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0?view=dotnet-plat-ext-6.0) objects. ![Viewing the type of a ServiceController object with Get-Member](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-553.png) Viewing the type of a ServiceController object with Get-Member 3\. Replace the Get-Members cmdlet with mkdir to automatically create a folder for each service. The -first 5 switch limits the number of objects to return. In turn, the mkdir function will only create five folders based on the objects in the pipeline. ```powershell Get-Service | Select-Object -Property Name -First 5 | mkdir ``` You should see an output similar to the screenshot below, indicating the successful attempt. ![Creating a folder for the services on your system](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-554.png) Creating a folder for the services on your system 4\. Remove the folders by replacing mkdir with rmdir as in the snippet below. Turn on the -Verbose switch to show verbose output in your terminal. ```powershell Get-Service | Select-Object -Property Name -First 5 | rmdir -Verbose ``` The rmdir cmdlet expects strings and cannot handle the [hashtable](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/learn/deep-dives/everything-about-hashtable?view=powershell-7.2) representation of the ServiceController objects. Your attempt should fail with several errors, as in the screenshot below. ![Demonstrating that some cmdlets expect string values instead of hashtables](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-555.png) Demonstrating that some cmdlets expect string values instead of hashtables Related:[Discover PowerShell to Delete Files with Remove-Item and WMI](https://adamtheautomator.com/powershell-to-delete-files/) 5\. Change the -Property switch to the -ExpandProperty switch as in the following snippet. Doing so allows you to get the value of a property as a string when all you need is a string. ```powershell Get-Service | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Name -First 5 | rmdir -Verbose ``` Combined with rmdir, you should see your attempt to automatically remove the folders succeed without errors, as in the screenshot below. ![Deleting folders named after the services expanded](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-556.png) Deleting folders named after the services expanded ## Creating a Set of Selected Objects with Specific Properties To shorten the code snippets in the sections, create a variable for the first 20 services on your machine as follows. Run the `Get-Service` command, select the first `20` objects via the `Select-Object` cmdlet, and store the objects in a variable named `$testServices`. Select only the `Name`, `Status`, and `DependentServices` properties as follows. ```powershell $testServices = Get-Service | Select-Object -Property Name,Status,DependentServices -First 20 ``` > _The PowerShell Expand Property switch can only expand one property at a time, in contrast to the Property switch, which can select more than one property simultaneously._ Execute the variable name, `$testServices`, to view the structure of its contents. ```powershell $testServices ``` You should see a table displaying the properties of the services you shortlisted, similar to the screenshot below. ![Displaying the contents of $testServices](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-557.png) Displaying the contents of $testServices ## Expanding a Collection Property with PowerShell Expand Property A PowerShell object can have properties that are collections of objects, also known as collection properties. In this section, you will learn how to use PowerShell Expand Property to expand a collection property to view its members’ properties. Execute the `Select-Object` cmdlet on the `$testServices` variable and expand the `DependentServices` property of each service. ```powershell $testServices | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DependentServices ``` Since `DependentServices` is a collection property, the output is a list of the services in all populated collections, as shown below. Note the duplicates in the list due to concatenating results from the expanded `DependentServices`. ![Expanding the DependentServices property](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-558.png) Expanding the DependentServices property ## Combining Property with PowerShell Expand Property for Categorized Output Now you have a list of dependent services, but how do you know which service they depend on? In this section, you will learn to use the `-Property` switch to categorize an expanded property. Run the command below to categorize the `DependentServices` properties by `Name`. ```powershell $testServices | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DependentServices -Property Name ``` Since the dependent services already have a `Name` property, the categorization step fails, as shown below. > _The error below tells you that the initial list of services (in $testServices) already has a Name property conflicting with a Name property in the expanded DependentServices property._ ![Attempting to group an expanded property by the parent object name](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-559.png) Attempting to group an expanded property by the parent object name One workaround is to create [Calculated Properties](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/microsoft.powershell.core/about/about_calculated_properties?view=powershell-7.2) to rename the identifier property as follows. Save the previous command output modified to specify a calculated property called Depends On as the identifier property in a variable called $depServ. Depends on will contain the Name value for every service in $testService. The property name, `Depends on`, was arbitrarily chosen in this tutorial and can be any expression of your choice. ```powershell $depServ = $testServices | Select-Object -ExpandProperty DependentServices -Property @{name="Depends On"; expr={$_.Name}} ``` Pass the object in `$depServ` through `Select-Object` to select dependent service `Name`, `Status`, and `Depends On` properties. ```powershell $depServ | Select-Object -Property Name,Status,"Depends On" ``` You can now tell which services depend on the services in `$testServices`, as shown below. ![Grouping an expanded property using a calculated property](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-560.png) Grouping an expanded property using a calculated property ## Combining Format-List with PowerShell Expand Property for Verbosity PowerShell may limit which object properties to display, especially in tabular output, and the `-ExpandProperty` switch output may experience the same. You could show the expanded properties in a list instead as a workaround. Run the `Get-Process` cmdlet below to retrieve all the `modules` the `explorer` process uses. Turn on the `-ExpandProperty` switch to display the properties of the modules. ```powershell Get-Process explorer | select-object -ExpandProperty Modules ``` The output on your screen should resemble the following screenshot, automatically truncated to display only three properties. ![Viewing the truncated output of an expanded property](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-561.png) Viewing the truncated output of an expanded property Pipe the objects to the `Format-List` cmdlet to view all the values for the module objects in a more manageable list. ```powershell Get-Process explorer | select-object -ExpandProperty Modules | Format-List ``` As shown below, the output lists all properties and their values. You can further save the data to a file or pass it to another cmdlet for further processing. ![Converting the output of an expanded property to a list with Format-List](https://adamtheautomator.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/image-562.png) Converting the output of an expanded property to a list with Format-List ## Conclusion By successfully getting this far, you have seen how to benefit from the PowerShell Expand Property switch (-ExpandProperty) of the Select-Object cmdlet. PowerShell packs a host of useful cmdlets for many common tasks. You can augment your new knowledge by learning how to display files with PowerShell Cat quickly. 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