So far, we have seen how we can get Help on cmdlets. We used the Get-Command cmdlet as an example argument. Now, we are going to use Get-Command to discover cmdlets in PowerShell. Get-Help and Get-Command become the two most important cmdlets when you need any Help information in PowerShell.

PowerShell is like plain English—PowerShell follows the Verb-Noun format in cmdlet naming, which makes the cmdlets sound like plain English commands. It is a convention in PowerShell to use approved verbs, which ensures that verbs are limited in order to facilitate discovery. The nouns, on the other hand, can be arbitrary.

Get-Command can help determine the best cmdlet for a task. To find cmdlets, follow these steps:

1. Enter Get-Command to get a list of all of the available cmdlets in PowerShell. The number of cmdlets returned will change based on when you last updated PowerShell and the modules you have loaded:

PS> Get-Command

This may not be particularly useful—what would you do with a list of commands if you were looking for something to do with processes?

2. The lazy way of doing this is by using the following command:

PS> Get-Command *proc*

3. To be specific and look for a command that deals with processes, use the following code:

PS> get-command -no process
PS> # Verbose version: Get-Command -Noun 'Process'

4. To look for cmdlets that help you export objects, use the following code:

PS> get-command -v export
PS> # Verbose version: Get-Command -Verb 'Export'

5. The -Noun and -Verb parameters also accept wildcards:

PS> get-command -no proc*

6. Imagine that you just installed a PowerShell module (more on that later) and would like to look for cmdlets packaged in the module. For this example, we will use the SqlServer module:

PS> get-command -v get -m sqlserver 
PS> # Verbose version: Get-Command -Verb 'Get' -Module 'SqlServer'

PowerShell cmdlets are in the Verb-Noun form. The word appearing before the hyphen is the verb, and the one after is the noun. When cmdlets are loaded from modules, PowerShell identifies the verbs and the nouns in them. The search promptly returns the cmdlets based on the search specifications. Filters based on the name of the verb, noun, or even the module restrict the search accordingly.