The Compare-Object cmdlet compares two sets of objects. One set of objects is the reference, and the other set of objects is the difference. Compare-Object checks for available methods of comparing a whole object. If it can't find a suitable method, it call the ToString() methods of the input objects and compares the string results. You can provide one or more properties to be used for comparison. When properties are provided, the cmdlet compares the values of those properties only. The result of the comparison indicates whether a property value appeared only in the reference object (<=) or only in the difference object (=>). If the IncludeEqual parameter is used, (==) indicates the value is in both objects. If the reference or the difference objects are null ($null), Compare-Object generates a terminating error. Some examples use splatting to reduce the line length of the code samples. For more information, see about_Splatting.