Files, FIM, and PowerShell (James Booth)

James Booth former Microsoft Group Program Manager for MIIS (precursor to FIM) presented on using PowerShell to process files in preparation for consumption by FIM.

James points out that “In the beginning, it was all files.” These call based MA’s are the new kids on the block, also said that at Microsoft in 2000 the philosophy was “XML is the answer, now what is your question?”

James has posted his new commandlets to GitHub https://github.com/jhbooth/LDIF-PowerShell 

Commandlet	Description
Import-DirectoryCredential	Imports directory credentials from a file, and returns a custom PowerShell object. Imports directory credentials from a file created using Export-DirectoryCredential
Export-DirectoryCredential	see above
Import-LDIF	Imports directory information from an LDIF file, and writes custom PowerShell objects to the pipeline.
Export-LDIF	Exports directory information from the pipeline to an LDIF file
Convert-EscapeDnComponent	Escape DN components – escaping

James also talked about “munging” the data by piping the data through other functions to transform the data.

He also cautioned against thinking that PowerShell is the only way to do something.