Accessing .NET components from Powershell

Question

I want to use Powershell to write some utilities, leveraging our own .NET components to handle the actual work. This is in place of writing a small console app to tie the calls together. My question is where I would find a good source of documentation or tutorial material to help me fast track this?

Answer 1

If you want to load an assembly into your PowerShell session, you can use reflection and load the assembly.

[void][System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFrom(PathToYourAssembly)

After you load your assembly, you can call static methods and create new instances of a class.

A good tutorial can be found here.

Both books mentioned by EBGreen are excellent. The PowerShell Cookbook is very task oriented and PowerShell in Action is a great description of the language, its focus and useability. PowerShell in Action is one of my favorite books. :)

Answer 2

The link that Steven posted is a good example. I don't know of any extensive tutorial. Both the Windows Powershell Cookbook and Windows Powershell In Action have good chapters on the subject. Also, look at the ::LoadFromFile method of the System.Reflection.Assembly class in case your in-house assemblies are not loaded in the GAC.