{"id":10681,"date":"2006-04-25T12:18:01","date_gmt":"2006-04-25T12:18:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/powershell\/2006\/04\/25\/getting-msdn-help-urls-for-net-bcl-types-and-members\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T13:24:58","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T20:24:58","slug":"getting-msdn-help-urls-for-net-bcl-types-and-members","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/getting-msdn-help-urls-for-net-bcl-types-and-members\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting MSDN help urls for .NET BCL types and Members"},"content":{"rendered":"

 Often when playing with .Net objects in Monad, I need to use MSDN class library <\/a>reference to learn how to use a particular type and its members. Now, I have my bookmarks and favorite search engine but I always thought it would be cool if get-member<\/em><\/strong> cmdlet could provide me a help link\/reference to go to. Thanks to the way MSDN organizes the class library content this seems possible.  MSDN uses the .Net namespace to organize the content. So http:\/\/msdn2.microsoft.com\/library\/System.Diagnostics.Process.aspx<\/a>  refers to the page providing information on the Process Type while http:\/\/msdn2.microsoft.com\/library\/System.Diagnostics.Process.Start.aspx<\/a> refers to the page providing information on the Start method.<\/p>\n

Using monad’s Extended Type System (ETS) features and the way MSDN orgranizes the information I can achieve what  I want.  The get-member cmdlet outputs an object of Type System.Management.Automation.Commands.MemberDefinition.<\/strong> I will extend this type by adding a ScriptProperty called HelpLink via types.mshxml.  The following is the xml snippet that I add to my types.mshxml. The ScriptBlock basically constructs a url string based on the type name and name of the member being accessed. You will have to restart msh to get the changes in.<\/p>\n

<<\/font>Type>
    <Name>System.Management.Automation.Commands.MemberDefinition<\/Name>
    <Members>
        <ScriptProperty>
         <Name>HelpLink<\/Name>
         <GetScriptBlock>  “<\/font>http:\/\/msdn2.microsoft.com\/library\/<\/font><\/a>” + $this.typename +”.” +$this.name+”.aspx”<\/GetScriptBlock>
        <\/ScriptProperty>
     <\/Members>
 <\/Type><\/font><\/p>\n

 This is what the get-member output looks like before<\/em><\/strong> adding the extension.<\/p>\n

MSH> $a = ps msh<\/font><\/p>\n

MSH > $a | get-member -membertype method -name Start | format-list<\/font><\/p>\n

TypeName   : System.Diagnostics.Process
Name       : Start
MemberType : Method
Definition : System.Boolean Start()<\/font>
<\/font><\/p>\n

This is what the get-member output looks like after<\/strong><\/em> the extension.<\/p>\n

MSH C:\\> $a | get-member -membertype method -name Start | format-list<\/font><\/p>\n

HelpLink   : <\/font>http:\/\/msdn2.microsoft.com\/library\/System.Diagnostics.Process.Star<\/font><\/font><\/a>t.aspx<\/font><\/a>
TypeName   : System.Diagnostics.Process
Name       : Start
MemberType : Method
Definition : System.Boolean Start()
<\/font><\/font><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

I can now navigate to the exact help link directly from monad whenever needed :-). This seems to work ok for types in the base class library, but will not work for COM objects or the adapted objects or any custom types you might have.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n

-Abhishek Agrawal<\/p>\n

<\/font> <\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

[Edit: Monad has now been renamed to Windows PowerShell. This script or discussion may require slight adjustments before it applies directly to newer builds.<\/i>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 Often when playing with .Net objects in Monad, I need to use MSDN class library reference to learn how to use a particular type and its members. Now, I have my bookmarks and favorite search engine but I always thought it would be cool if get-member cmdlet could provide me a help link\/reference to go to. Thanks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":600,"featured_media":13641,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

 Often when playing with .Net objects in Monad, I need to use MSDN class library reference to learn how to use a particular type and its members. Now, I have my bookmarks and favorite search engine but I always thought it would be cool if get-member cmdlet could provide me a help link\/reference to go to. Thanks […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/600"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/powershell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}