Using PowerShell to create a custom reference for Azure PowerShell cmdlets and parameters

I was looking into the list of Azure PowerShell cmdlets and I could not find a page with all cmdlets and parameters in a single list. There are individual pages for each cmdlet on TechNet, but not all cmdlets in one page. There is a list of all cmdlets in one page, but that does not include the parameters as well.

However, since we have the Get-Command and Get-Help cmdlets, that is something that we can solve by writing a script. So, after installing the latest (as of 11/14/14) Azure PowerShell cmdlets, I wrote a little script to output all cmdlet names and parameters to HTML. Here’s that script:

$Cmdlet = “” | Select Name, Parameters
Get-command -Module Azure | % {
  Get-Help $_ | % {
    $ParameterSetCount = 1
    $CmdletName = $_.Name
    $ParameterSets = $_.syntax.syntaxItem
    $ParameterSets | % {

      $Cmdlet.Name=$CmdletName
      If ($ParameterSets.Count -gt 1) {
        $Cmdlet.Name+=” (“+$ParameterSetCount+”)”
        $ParameterSetCount++
      }

      $Parameters = $_.parameter
      $StringPar=””
      If ($Parameters) {
        $First=$true
        $Parameters | % {
          If ($First) {$First=$false} else {$StringPar+=”%%”}
          $StringPar+= “ -“+$_.name+” “;
          if ($_.parameterValue -and ($_.parameterValue –notlike “Switch*”)) {
            $StringPar+= ”<”+$_.parameterValue+”> “
          }
        }
      }
      $StringPar=$StringPar.Replace(“Nullable“1”,””)
      $StringPar=$StringPar.Replace(“System.[[System.Int32, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089]]”,”Int32”)
      $StringPar=$StringPar.Replace(“System.[[System.Boolean, mscorlib, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089]]”,”Boolean”)
      $Cmdlet.parameters=$StringPar;

      $Cmdlet 
    }
  }
} | ConvertTo-HTML | Out-File D:AzureCmdlets.HTML

I ended up having to make a few adjustments to make things work better for my specific purpose:

• If a cmdlet has more than one form (more than one parameter set), I listed them with a number next to the cmdlet name
• I added the data type next to the parameter name, enclosed in <angle brackets> (except for switch parameters)
• Certain data types were showing some additional info that I did not need (like “Nullable”), which I removed
• The script adds a “%%” mark between parameters. I later replaced those with HTML line breaks (“<BR>”)

Here is the output of the script, with some minor adjustments to the HTML: