Professional Windows® PowerShell

9.7. Using the measure-object Cmdlet

The measure-object cmdlet allows you to measure or calculate properties of Windows PowerShell objects. One use of the measure-object cmdlet is to provide information on summary criteria, such as line count or word count, on files whose content is retrieved using the get-content cmdlet.

In addition to the common parameters, the measure-object cmdlet supports the following parameters:

• InputObject — Specifies the input object. If the input comes from a pipeline, this parameter is omitted.

• Property — Specifies a property on which the cmdlet is to operate.

• Average — Specifies that the mean of some numeric items is to be calculated.

• Sum — Specifies that the sum of numeric values is to be calculated.

• Minimum — Specifies that the minimum value in a series of numeric values is to be found.

• Maximum — Specifies that the maximum value in a series of numeric values is to be found.

• Line — Specifies that a line count of text data is to be carried out.

• Word — Specifies that a word count of text data is to be carried out.

• Character — Specifies that characters in text data are to be counted.

• IgnoreWhitespace — A boolean value that specifies whether or not whitespace is to be ignored. By default, whitespace characters are counted.

The -inputObject and -property parameters apply to numeric and text input. The -average, -sum, -minimum, and -maximum parameters are used with numeric input. The -line, -word, -character, and IgnoreWhitespace parameters are used with text input. ...