Select-Object -ExcludeProperty dependency on -Property is unintuitive. #2351
Description
Steps to reproduce
Get-Service -Name Spooler | Select-Object -ExcludeProperty Status
Expected behavior
Return a Selected.System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController object with all standard properties of System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController except Status.
Actual behavior
Returns System.ServiceProcess.ServiceController object with all properties including status.
To get the desired behavior you must use the -Property parameter in conjunction with the -ExcludeProperty parameter, this is explained in the help documentation for select-object as:
"This parameter is effective only when the command also includes the Property parameter."
I don't understand the case where you would want to declare to explicitly include a property, then exclude it again such as:
Get-Service -Name Spooler | Select-Object -Property Status -ExcludeProperty Status
Therefore the convention is to always pass "-Property *" when using the -ExcludeProperty parameter. I would suggest defaulting to -Property * when using the -ExcludeProperty cmdlet, if that would be considered a breaking change, I would suggest throwing an error if -ExcludeProperty is used without -Property indicating that you are missing a mandatory parameter since ExcludeProperty is dependent on -Property.
Environment data
> $PSVersionTable
Name Value
---- -----
PSVersion 5.0.10586.63
PSCompatibleVersions {1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0...}
BuildVersion 10.0.10586.63
CLRVersion 4.0.30319.42000
WSManStackVersion 3.0
PSRemotingProtocolVersion 2.3
SerializationVersion 1.1.0.1