{"id":119,"date":"2014-12-28T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-28T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2014\/12\/28\/weekend-scripter-playing-with-powershell-prompt\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T10:36:19","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T17:36:19","slug":"weekend-scripter-playing-with-powershell-prompt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/weekend-scripter-playing-with-powershell-prompt\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Scripter: Playing with PowerShell Prompt"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/b>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about playing with the Windows PowerShell prompt.<\/span><\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is time to round up all of those end-of-the-year kinds of things. This is, in fact, the last weekend Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog post of 2014. Not sure what that means; but it is true, this is the last weekend post of the year. Not that I am going to do anything special, or make a big deal of it, but I just was thinking about it.<\/p>\n

One thing I like to do from time-to-time, is override my Windows PowerShell prompt. The cool thing is that I can do it on the fly. This is because it is simply a function—and like all functions, I can overwrite the behavior.<\/p>\n

Like all other Windows PowerShell functions, the Windows PowerShell prompt resides on the Function drive. I can use the Get-Content<\/b> cmdlet to retrieve the current value. Here is the one on my computer:<\/p>\n

PS C:\\Users\\ed> Get-Content Function:\\prompt<\/p>\n

"PS $($executionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation)$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) "<\/p>\n

# .Link<\/p>\n

# http:\/\/go.microsoft.com\/fwlink\/?LinkID=225750<\/p>\n

# .ExternalHelp System.Management.Automation.dll-help.xml<\/p>\n

OK, it is a little shaggy. The main thing, in fact, the only<\/i> executing code is a one-liner. It retrieves the current location, and it displays a right arrow if I am in a nested prompt. It is basic and generally does what I want. It also lets me have pretty much all the space at the Windows PowerShell console that I could possibly want.<\/p>\n

But, it can be shorter. In fact, I know quite a few people who omit the initial PS<\/b>. Here is a prompt that does that:<\/p>\n

Function prompt {"$($executionContext.SessionState.Path.CurrentLocation)$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) "}<\/p>\n

All I need to do is to type the command at the Windows PowerShell console, and press ENTER. Here is the command and its results:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

When I close and re-open the Windows PowerShell console, my Windows PowerShell console prompt returns to the default value.<\/p>\n

But suppose that I do not care what my current location is. In that case, I can retrieve a few more spaces on the Windows PowerShell console line. Here is an example of that:<\/p>\n

Function prompt {"$('>' * ($nestedPromptLevel + 1)) "}<\/p>\n

The prompt is shown here:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

In each case, I use the content of the previous function to create my new prompt function. But I do not need to do that. I can, for example, create a prompt that is totally mine. Here is an example that displays the current date:<\/p>\n

Function prompt {"HSG $([datetime]::Now.ToShortDateString()): "}<\/p>\n

Here is the prompt:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

One thing that might be fun to do is change the background color of the Windows PowerShell console—on a random basis. Here is a prompt that does that:<\/p>\n

Function prompt {[console]::backgroundcolor = $(Get-Random -Minimum 0 -Maximum 15); "HSG $([datetime]::Now.ToShortDateString()): "}<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that not all colors of a background color will be compatible with the foreground color, so you might want to add a bit of logic if you really want random colors. Each time a Windows PowerShell command runs, the background color changes, but the foreground color is currently remaining the same. Here is what that might look like:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Remember that if things don’t work out, all you need to do is close Windows PowerShell and re-open it. This is because you are creating a temporary function that is only stored in memory. I can redefine it at will and on-the-fly. If I come up with something I really like, I can add it to my Windows PowerShell profile. I will talk about that later.<\/p>\n

For now, have fun, and let me know what crazy ideas you come up with.<\/p>\n

I invite you to follow me on Twitter<\/a> and Facebook<\/a>. If you have any questions, send email to me at scripter@microsoft.com<\/a>, or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson, Microsoft Scripting Guy<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about playing with the Windows PowerShell prompt. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is time to round up all of those end-of-the-year kinds of things. This is, in fact, the last weekend Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog post of 2014. Not sure what that means; but it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":596,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,563,3,4,61,45],"class_list":["post-119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-getting-started","tag-prompt","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-weekend-scripter","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, talks about playing with the Windows PowerShell prompt. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. It is time to round up all of those end-of-the-year kinds of things. This is, in fact, the last weekend Hey, Scripting Guy! Blog post of 2014. Not sure what that means; but it […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}