Extending TabExpansion function Part 3 EDIT*: According to /\/\o\/\/'s advice(refer to comment's section), i have modified the previous source to use Get-Help instead of Get-ChildItem to retrieve available about_ help file names. (BTW, i will be modifying this script yet, again, so that "about_" would expand only when "Get-Help" or "Help" is already typed...(not to mess up File name expansion in $PsHome directory)

  # Handle "about_*" help manuals
  '\s*(about_[\w|\d]*)' {
    $matched = $matches[1]
    $helpFileNames = Get-Help $matched | Sort-Object Name | Select-Object Name

    if ($helpFileNames.Length -ne $null) {
      $helpFileNames | foreach { 
        # extract manual name(NOTE:same RegEx pattern)
        $m = [RegEx]::Matches($_.Name, '\s*(about_[\w|\d]*)')
        $m[0].Value
      }
    }
  }


In this version, i have added functionality to expand "about_[tab]" manual files.

Now you can do;

• about_[Tab] -> about_Alias
• about_r[Tab] -> about_regular_expression
• about_regular_[Tab] -> about_regular_expression
• about_u[Tab] -> about_ubiquitous_parameters

I was a bit annoyed to type long manual names like about_ubiquitous_parameters and about_regular_expression (which is a manual i read often) all the time so decided to become *lazy*...

When you do get-help about_alias, See Also section mentions about_variable manual.
If you try "about_v[Tab]" it would not work because there is no manual file named about_variable.help.txt in $pshome.

Now it should be apparent now how I have implemented my functionality.
It basically checks for manual file name that matches "about_blah*" against manual file names on $PSHOME directory.

switch -regex ($lastWord)
{
#
# Other functionalities...
#

# Handle "about_*" help manuals
'\s*(about_[\w\d]*)' {
 $matched = $matches[1]
 # Search for manual file name in $PSHOME
 $helpFileNames = Get-ChildItem "$pshome/$($matched)*.help.txt" | Sort-Object Name | Select-Object Name

 if ($helpFileNames -ne $null) {
   $helpFileNames  foreach {
     # extract manual name(NOTE:same RegEx pattern)
     $m = [RegEx]::Matches($_.Name, '\s*(about_[\w\d]*)')
     $m[0].Value
   }
 }
}

# ...

Add above piece of code to "TabExpansion.ps1", go to wherever you have saved the file and ". .\TabExpansion.ps1" and you are good to go.
For previous blog posts(mine or /\/\o\/\/'s)on "TabExpansion", go check out "http://del.icio.us/powershell/TabExpansion"


Tags : Monad msh PowerShell  ¶ 9:39 PM