A show command without additional parameters displays information in a summary form. Additionally, every show command has the same two mutually exclusive optional parameters, -instance and -fields.

When you use the -instance parameter with a show command, the command output displays detailed information in a list format. In some cases, the detailed output can be lengthy and include more information than you need. You can use the -fields fieldname[,fieldname…​] parameter to customize the output so that it displays information only for the fields you specify. You can identity which fields that you can specify by entering ? after the -fields parameter.

Every show command has one or more optional parameters that filter that output and enable you to narrow the scope of information displayed in command output. You can identity which optional parameters are available for a command by entering ? after the show command.

The show command supports UNIX-style patterns and wildcards to enable you to match multiple values in command-parameters arguments. For example, you can use the wildcard operator (*), the NOT operator (!), the OR operator (|), the range operator (integer…​integer), the less-than operator (<), the greater-than operator (>), the less-than or equal to operator (<=), and the greater-than or equal to operator (>=) when specifying values.

For more information about using UNIX-style patterns and wildcards, see the Using the ONTAP command-line interface.