Some PowerShell Functionality
coding powershell
Just developed some scripts to assist blogging on my BlogSite. To do so I did some “Monkeys on a Typewriter Coding” using PowerShell. This site is a custom Jekyll-Markdown site. I wanted a couple of scripts to generate a new blog post using metadata obtained from command line parameters and a menu. I could have coded them in Jekyll but chose to do in it in PowerShell.
I have discussed the functionality of these scripts on another post here: This blog site construction-Latest. It has links to the code that will be reused here. On this page I want to focus upon the PowerShell functionality gleamed from searching the internet. The code has references to where hints or solutions to the functionality was found, much like a “Dear Diary”.
| No. | Script & Link | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | set-path.ps1 | Sets the PowerShell prompt path to include the location of these scripts |
| 2 | jekyll-clean.ps1 | Clean built site as well as some custom generated pages to do with categories and tags |
| 3 | new-post.ps1 | Generate a templated new post as Markdown file with FrontMatter from supplied metadata |
| 4 | new-post-yml.ps1 | Same as previous but uses Categories from sections.yml for Category selection menu |
The following table lists some PowerShell functionality implemented (not in any particular order) in these scripts.
Browse through the scripts 2,3 and 4 (unless otherwise stated) to see how to implement the functionality and to read further:
| PowerShell Functionality | Comment |
|---|---|
| Check if a file exists | e.g. if ( Test-Path $sections ) |
| Parameters | N.b. Need to be first in script. |
| Mandatory and Default Parameters | See 3,4 |
| Install a PowerShell Module (YML in this case) | See 4 |
| Check if a PowerShell module has been installed | See 4 |
| ConvertFrom YAML | See 4 |
| If .. Else | |
| For and Foreach Loops | N.b. no Then |
| String.Format | |
| String.Replace | $string.Replace(‘a’,’b’) |
| String Null or Empty test | |
| String Concatenation | |
| String length | $string.Length |
| New Text File | |
| Text File Write to and Append | |
| Input TextFile to String | See 4 |
| Generate menu from a list | See 4 |
| Get Menu selection and use to get list item | See 4 |
| Split a list of tuples into two singular lists | See 4 |
| List length | Use Count property |
| Convert string to int and viz | |
| Date string formatting | See 3,4 |
| Output to command terminal | write-Output ‘string’ |
| Comments | Precede line with # |
| Present Working Directory Path | $pwd.Path |
| Get and Set Environment Variables | See 1 |
| Append to Path locally | See 1 |
| Throw an error | See 1 |
| String split on a character | See 1 |
| Delete a folder | See 1 |
| Create a folder if it doesn’t exist | See 1 |
| Topic | Subtopic | |
| Next: > | .NET Core on IoT | Getting started on Win 10 IoT Core |
| < Prev: | .NET Core on IoT | Options for the RPi |
| This Category Links | ||
| Category: | Coding Index: | Coding |
| Next: > | PowerShell Code Signing of scripts |
