Verbs and Nouns

PowerShell cmdlets are composed of verbs and nouns in the format of verb-noun with the dash (-) separating the two. You may remember from your English classes that verbs denote action and nouns are things. Common PowerShell verbs are Get, Set, and Test. You can combine them with nouns to get information on objects or to set properties on objects.

Earlier, you saw the Set-Location cmdlet that is similar to the command-prompt change directory command (CD). Set is the verb and Location is the noun. Similarly, Get-Service uses the verb Get to retrieve information on services, and Out-File uses the verb Out to send information to a file.

If you can remember Get, Set, and Test, you're halfway there because PowerShell will give you a lot of clues. Try this. Type in Get- and then press the Tab key. PowerShell will display each of the legal commands that can be executed starting with Get- (from Get-ACL to Get-WSMan-Instance).

You can do the same thing with the Set and Test verbs. Type in Set- and press Tab to see all of the objects (nouns) that can have properties set: Set-ACL to Set-ManQuickConfig. If you type in Test-, you'll be able to tab through the choices from Test-ComputerSecureChannel through Test-WSMan.

Functions don't necessarily follow the verb-noun format but instead are just commands. For example, the E: function will set the current drive to E: by actually calling the Set-Location cmdlet using the parameter E:. However, the Clear-Host function does use a verb-noun format to indicate the host screen (the noun) is being cleared (the verb).