Get datastore name and canonical name

[MRoushdy]

Hello,

I just to list the datastore friendly name along with the canonical name please. I've previewed this topic, but that's not what I need.

[LucD]

Is this returning what you are looking for?

Get-Datastore |

Select Name,@{N='CanonicalName';E={$_.Extensiondata.Info.Vmfs.Extent[0].DiskName}}

[MRoushdy]

Excellent. Thank you.

I have a question please, I've always wanted to learn about this thing "{$_.Extensiondata.Info.Vmfs.Extent[0].DiskName}}", what do you call that kind of syntax, and where can I find a guide to that kind of properties for all of the vSphere objects?

[LucD]

In short, there are 2 types of objects accessible through PowerCLI.

1. The PowerCLI .Net objects. These are returned by PowerCLI cmdlets, and contain a selected set of properties (by the PowerCLI Dev Team).
2. The vSphere objects. These are read-only copies of the objects that are used internally by vSphere servers. They are documented in the vSphere Web Services API Reference

The objects of type 2 can be retrieved by the Get-View cmdlet. For example:

Note that the Filter parameter expects a hash table of conditions, where the right-side operand of each key-value pair is a RegEx expression.

Get-View -ViewType VirtualMachine -Filter @{'Name'='^MyVM$'}

Or through the ExtensionData property of objects of type 1. For example

Get-VM -Name MyVM | Select -ExpandProperty ExtensionData

These 2 lines return the same VirtualMachine object.