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The last thing I want to show you is a special hashtable

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called PS default parameter values.

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It exists automatically whenever you start PowerShell.

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By default, it has nothing in it.

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I'm going to add some entries and show you how this hashtable

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works and why you might want to use it.

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So I'm going to create an entry in PS default parameter values.

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The key takes the format of the name of the cmdlet,

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in this case, Get‑WinEvent, a colon, and then the name of the parameter,

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and because I've got those that colon in there,

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I'm putting this in double quotes, comma,

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and then the value is system.

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Get‑WinEvent has a parameter Logname, which is expecting the name of a event log.

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If I don't specify anything, I want system to be used by default.

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Let me add another entry here.

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So I'm going to add for Get‑WinEvent, using the MaxEvents parameter,

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I'm going to use a value of 10,

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and there you can see the current contents of PS default parameter values.

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I don't have to do anything special, I'm not splatting here,

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all I have to do is run the cmdlet like Get‑WinEvent.

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PowerShell will use the default values, in this case,

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gives me the 10 most recent entries from the system event log.

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Now I can specify different values, for example,

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and with the application log and a max value of one,

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so the PS default parameters are not used in that particular case.

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If I need to, I can modify it, this is an easy way to do it,

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and here, I'm like using the square brackets so I can say,

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you know what, for now on, I want the Maxevents value to be 5.

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Now when I run Get‑WinEvent, pick a different log,

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I don't have to specify ‑Maxevents,

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PowerShell will use whatever is in PS default parameter values,

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and I get my five entries.

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PS default parameter values is something that you most

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likely will set in your PowerShell profile,

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although sometimes it kind of gets in the way so you can disable it temporarily.

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To do that, you need to add an entry, and this is one way to do it,

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called disabled and give it a value of true.

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The hashtable still exists, but PowerShell will not use it.

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When I run Get‑WinEvent,

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I get an error because I did not specify a value for the log names,

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that kind of shows me that PS default parameter values was not being used.

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If I want to re‑enable it,

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I can just set the disabled key and give it a value of false.

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You can also clear all the entries from the hashtable.

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The hashtable still exists, but it has nothing in it.

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I use PS default parameter values all the time in my

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PowerShell profile and it makes my work with PowerShell so

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much faster and so much easier, once again,

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a help topic that you should take a look at to learn more about PS default

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parameter values and why you might want to use them.

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And that brings us to the end of the module.

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We looked at working with arrays and hashtables.

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These are things that PowerShell uses everywhere and you will use them all the

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time so you have to know the difference between the two,

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how to create them, how to manipulate them,

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and how to use them in PowerShell.

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I've given you a lot of help links to look at,

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I encourage you to do that, it is definitely worth your time.

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So that's it for now.

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Again,

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take a quick break and then come on back and let's look at more about what we can learn about the PowerShell language.