Use CAML when searching SharePoint

CAML is worth the effort. I went from this (powershell):

$listitem = $list.Items | Where { ($_.Title -eq $row["Title"]) -and ($_.Name -eq $row["Name"]) }

To this:

$query = New-Object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPQuery 
$caml = '<where><and><eq><fieldref name="Title"><value type="Text">' + $row["Title"] + '</value></fieldref></eq><eq><fieldref name="Name"><value type="Text">' + $row["Name"] + '</value></fieldref></eq></and></where>'
$query.Query = $caml 
$listitem = $list.GetItems($query)[0]

And the code in question is now about 60 times faster. I’m guessing that the first line is scanning every item until it finds the one it wants, while the CAML query somehow avoids that. Big improvement. 

Powershell tip 1: get-member

Get-Member will tell you all the properties and methods of an object.

So,

“this is a string” | Get-Member will return all the string options like split, join, whatever.

Get-SPContentDatabase | Get-Member on a sharepoint server will show you lots of methods you can run on the db, like “DiskSizeRequired” and “Server” to get information about the db.  

So if you have something in powershell and don’t know what to do with it, try piping it to get-member.