Viewing the Data Model Using PowerShell

Neil Lydick, one of the devs on our team, came up with this handy PowerShell script with a recursive function that displays the data model in a PowerShell window.

• Blue classes are abstract.
• White classes are non-abstract (aka “concrete” classes).
• Red text are the key properties for that class.

The script takes two parameters:

1) The class name you want to start from.

2) The server name to connect to (example: localhost or scsm.contoso.com)

We will also add this to the SMLets CodePlex project.

Just for fun try passing in System.Entity as the class name.  That’s the base class.  See how many classes you come up with. I have 753 in my installation of SCSM 2012. 

Here’s the script. Just copy/paste it into a notepad window and save it as PrintClasses.ps1 and then run it as describe above.

$className = $args[0]

$Host.UI.RawUI.buffersize = new-object System.Management.AUtomation.Host.Size(150,9999)
$Host.UI.RawUI.windowsize = new-object System.Management.AUtomation.Host.Size(150,80)

[reflection.assembly]::loadwithpartialname("Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.Core") | out-null
$emg = new-object Microsoft.EnterpriseManagement.EnterpriseManagementGroup $args[1]

$selectedClass = $emg.EntityTypes.GetClasses() | ?{ $_.Name -eq "$className" }

$global:countOfClasses = 0;

function PrintClasses($class, $levelString)
{
   $keyProperties = @($class.GetProperties(0) | ?{$_.Key -eq $true});
   $keyString = "";
 
   if ($keyProperties.Count -gt 0)
   {
       $keyString = "{" + [string]::Join(",", $keyProperties) + "}"
   }

   if ($class.Abstract -eq $true)
   {
      write-host -foregroundcolor cyan $levelString $class.Name " " -nonewline
      write-host -foregroundcolor red $keyString
   }
   else
   {
      write-host -foregroundcolor white $levelString $class.Name " " -nonewline
      write-host -foregroundcolor red $keyString
   }

   $global:countOfClasses++;
   
   $derivedFromClass = @();
   $derivedFromClass += $class.GetDerivedTypes();
  
   foreach ($derivedClass in $derivedFromClass) 
   {
      PrintClasses $derivedClass ($levelString + "  ")
   }
}

PrintClasses $selectedClass "  "
write-host "==============================";
write-host "Number of classes: " $global:countOfClasses;