accessing properties with foreach-object versus format-table

Should there be any difference in these two statements, performance-
wise? The second one is easier to read, IMO, and I'd like to know if
there are cases where I would not want to use it.

# Get-WMIObject Win32_Printer | foreach-object{$_.Name}

# Get-WMIObject Win32_Printer | format-table name

On Jul 9, 6:14 am, Hal Rottenberg <halr9...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Should there be any difference in these two statements, performance-
> wise? The second one is easier to read, IMO, and I'd like to know if
> there are cases where I would not want to use it.
>
> # Get-WMIObject Win32_Printer | foreach-object{$_.Name}
>
> # Get-WMIObject Win32_Printer | format-table name

on the screen the differences should be minimal.. format-table just
directs the formater (which takes the dotnet object in the pipeline
and formats them to fit in the console screen), to format the data a
certian way.. (here a table with one column) with the foreach you are
just outputting an array of strings, that happen to be the name and
they get formatted automatically

you could also play with

Get-WMIObject Win32_Printer | select name

again the formatting is done automatically.

one negative thing about format-* cmdlets is the pipeline data gets
destroyed , so while it may look fine on the screen. if you wanted to
do something with it later. its no good
i.e
$a =Get-WMIObject Win32_Printer | format-table name
$a | gm

-Karl