Powershell – Difference between Get-IISSite and Get-ChildItem iis:\\sites

powershell

I'm wondering if someone can explain to me a difference in behavior that I'm seeing.

I'm trying to find the physical path of an IIS site.

This sample works, correctly returning the PhysicalPath

Import-Module WebAdministration
Get-ChildItem iis:\\sites | Select PhysicalPath

This sample doesn't work. The PhysicalPath is returned as null / empty. 

Get-IISSite | select PhysicalPath

If I'm correct, both the samples should be returning a Microsoft.Web.Administration.Site object. Why is the second one missing data?

Best Answer

Let's see:

Get-ChildItem iis:\sites | get-Member | Where name -like p* | Sort-Object Name

    TypeName: System.Object

 Name          MemberType   Definition
 ----          ----------   ----------
 password      NoteProperty string password=
 physicalPath  NoteProperty string physicalPath=C:\inetpub\wwwroot
 PSChildName   NoteProperty string PSChildName=Default Web Site
 PSDrive       NoteProperty PSDriveInfo PSDrive=IIS
 PSIsContainer NoteProperty bool PSIsContainer=True
 PSParentPath  NoteProperty string PSParentPath=WebAdministration::\\SANKNIGHT\Sites
 PSPath        NoteProperty string PSPath=WebAdministration::\\SANKNIGHT\Sites\Default Web Site
 PSProvider    NoteProperty IIsProviderInfo PSProvider=WebAdministration

Get-IISSite | get-Member

    TypeName: Microsoft.Web.Administration.Site

 Name                       MemberType            Definition
 ----                       ----------            ----------
 ApplicationDefaults        Property              Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationDefaults ApplicationDefault...
 Applications               Property              Microsoft.Web.Administration.ApplicationCollection Applications {get;}
 Attributes                 Property              Microsoft.Web.Administration.ConfigurationAttributeCollection Attri...
 Bindings                   Property              Microsoft.Web.Administration.BindingCollection Bindings {get;}
 ChildElements              Property              Microsoft.Web.Administration.ConfigurationChildElementCollection Ch...
 Delete                     Method                void Delete()

it doesn't have any members starting with P and has far fewer members than Get-ChildItem. You can see they are not the same object either.

When using Get-ChildItem, each provider provides some hints on what should be displayed. I think this is in:

$pshome\Modules\WebAdministration\iisprovider.format.ps1xml

because of this, all the extra information is added.

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