Search-Cloud is cooler than you might think

PowerCLI 5.0.1 delivered new vCloud Director functionality including a cmdlet named Search-Cloud. If you’ve taken a look at Get-Help Search-Cloud, you’ll see a parameter named -QueryType used to “Specify what types of objects you want to search for”. That’s great, but what types of objects *can* you search for? The help, sadly, isn’t very helpful.

There are a couple different ways to find out. One of them is specific to PowerCLI 5.0.1 and is the Cmdlet Reference. By drilling into the All Cmdlets section and locating Search-Cloud, you’ll see that the parameter named QueryType is of the type QueryType, which is a .NET Enum. Click on the QueryType and you’ll see all the cool things that you can search for using Search-Cloud. Very nice!

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There are a few other ways to figure out what the type of parameter -QueryType is, and the expected values. One of them is quite simple, use an invalid -QueryType.

PS C:\>; Search-Cloud -QueryType me
Search-Cloud : Cannot bind parameter 'QueryType'. Cannot convert value "me" to type "VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.View
s.QueryType" due to invalid enumeration values. Specify one of the following enumeration values and try again. The p
ossible enumeration values are "User, AdminVAppNetwork, AdminUser, BlockingTask, Cell, Host, AdminCatalogItem, Vm, A
dminCatalog, Group, AllocatedExternalAddress, OrgVdcResourcePoolRelation, AdminVApp, DvSwitch, Organization, VAppTem
plate, AdminAllocatedExternalAddress, OrgNetwork, Catalog, VirtualCenter, ResourcePool, Right, StrandedUser, Portgro
up, AdminVM, Media, AdminVAppTemplate, AdminOrgVdc, OrgVdc, CatalogItem, Event, VApp, AdminOrgNetwork, VAppNetwork,
AdminShadowVM, Datastore, ProviderVdc, DatastoreProviderVdcRelation, AdminMedia, ExternalNetwork, NetworkPool, Admin
Group, Task, AdminTask, VAppOrgNetworkRelation, Role, ProviderVdcResourcePoolRelation".
At line:1 char:24
+ Search-Cloud -QueryType <;<;<;<;  me     + CategoryInfo          : InvalidArgument: (:) [Search-Cloud], ParameterBindingException     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CannotConvertArgumentNoMessage,VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.Commands.Cmdlets.SearchCloud 

Another would be to find the ParameterType, which shows us it’s VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.Views.QueryType. This can be accomplished in steps:

 PS C:\>; Get-Command search-Cloud | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Parameters

Key                                Value
---                                -----
Name                               System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
Filter                             System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
QueryType                          System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
Property                           System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
Server                             System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
Verbose                            System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
Debug                              System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
ErrorAction                        System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
WarningAction                      System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
ErrorVariable                      System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
WarningVariable                    System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
OutVariable                        System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata
OutBuffer                          System.Management.Automation.ParameterMetadata

And then:

PS C:\>; (Get-Command search-Cloud | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Parameters).QueryType

Name            : QueryType
ParameterType   : VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.Views.QueryType
ParameterSets   : {[__AllParameterSets, System.Management.Automation.ParameterSetMetadata]}
IsDynamic       : False
Aliases         : {}
Attributes      : {__AllParameterSets, System.Management.Automation.ValidateNotNullOrEmptyAttribute}
SwitchParameter : False

And

PS C:\>; (Get-Command search-Cloud | Select-Object -ExpandProperty Parameters).QueryType.ParameterType

IsPublic IsSerial Name                      BaseType
-------- -------- ----                      --------
True     True     QueryType                 System.Enum

Now that we know it’s an enum, we can do a couple different things. The code below will list out all the names in the enum.

[Enum]::GetNames("VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.Views.QueryType")

We’ll get effectively the same information back in this way, too.

[VMware.VimAutomation.Cloud.Views.QueryType] | Get-Member -Static -MemberType Property