{"id":9021,"date":"2012-06-17T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2012\/06\/17\/weekend-scripter-automatically-indent-your-powershell-code-in-the-ise\/"},"modified":"2012-06-17T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2012-06-17T00:01:00","slug":"weekend-scripter-automatically-indent-your-powershell-code-in-the-ise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/weekend-scripter-automatically-indent-your-powershell-code-in-the-ise\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Scripter: Automatically Indent Your PowerShell Code in the ISE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary<\/b>: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, shows how to create a function to indent your code in the Windows PowerShell ISE without tabbing.<\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the cool things about a road trip is that it gives me a chance to catch up on stuff I want to do. Luckily, the Scripting Wife enjoys driving, and I enjoy writing Windows PowerShell code while she is driving, so it works great (way better than me trying to drive from the passenger’s seat).<\/p>\n

One of the things I have wanted to do for a long time is write a function that will automatically indent selected code inside the Windows PowerShell ISE. Of course, I could highlight the code and press Tab. The problem with that is that I get an invisible tab character (“`t”) in my code. For most people, this is a non-issue, but some of the applications that I use (for writing books, for example) do not like Tabs in code blocks. Some script editors have an option where you can set Use spaces instead of tabs<\/b>, but the Windows PowerShell ISE does not have this feature—until now. And, while I was at it, I decided to do something that even other script editors don’t do, and that is, I made it variable. So I can specify indented code for one section of 3 spaces—and later on, I can indent another section 6 spaces—and later, another section, 9 spaces—or whatever I want to do.<\/p>\n

The Move-Text function<\/h2>\n

The Move-Text<\/b> function accepts a single input parameter; that is, an integer for how many spaces to indent the selected code. I set a default value of 1, mostly to avoid errors, but also because most of the time, I only indent my code a single space. So this saves me time. If you would like to make the default 2 or 3, you can edit this line:<\/p>\n

Param([int]$space = 1)<\/p>\n

The next thing I need to do is to create the space that I will use for my “tab” stop. To do this, I multiply a blank space by the number defined in the $space<\/b> variable. This line of code is shown here.<\/p>\n

$tab = ” ” * $space<\/p>\n

Next, I pick up the selected text and assign it to the $text<\/b> variable as shown here.<\/p>\n

$text = $psISE.CurrentFile.editor.selectedText<\/p>\n

Now I use the ForEach<\/b> <\/i>statement to walk through the selected text. I need to split the selected text on the Newline<\/b> character so that I have lines instead of characters of selected text. This is shown here.<\/p>\n

foreach ($l in $text -split [environment]::newline)<\/p>\n

Inside the script block, I create new text and assign it to the $newtext<\/b> variable. I take the spaces stored in the $tab<\/b> variable and add the line of code to it. I then append a Newline<\/b> character to the selected code. This is shown here.<\/p>\n

{<\/p>\n

   $newText += “{0}{1}” -f ($tab + $l),[environment]::newline<\/p>\n

  }<\/p>\n

Finally, I use the InsertText<\/b> method to insert the newly created text with the indented code into the script editor. This code accomplishes that task.<\/p>\n

$psISE.CurrentFile.Editor.InsertText($newText)<\/p>\n

The complete Move-Text function is shown here.<\/p>\n

Move-Text Function<\/b><\/p>\n

function move-text<\/p>\n

{<\/p>\n

  <#<\/p>\n

   .Synopsis<\/p>\n

    This function will indent text in the ISE a specific number<\/p>\n

   .Description<\/p>\n

    This function will indent selected text in the PowerShell ISE. These are<\/p>\n

    real spaces, not tabs. Therefore this is appropriate for situations where<\/p>\n

    an actual tab “`t” will not work.<\/p>\n

   .Example<\/p>\n

    move-text -space 5<\/p>\n

    moves selected text five spaces<\/p>\n

   .Parameter spaces<\/p>\n

    The number of spaces to indent the selected text. Note this number cannot<\/p>\n

    be a negative number, and this function does not “unindent” the selected text.<\/p>\n

   .Notes<\/p>\n

    NAME:  Move-text<\/p>\n

    AUTHOR: ed wilson, msft<\/p>\n

    LASTEDIT: 06\/11\/2012 17:16:29<\/p>\n

    KEYWORDS: Windows PowerShell ISE, Scripting Techniques<\/p>\n

    HSG:<\/p>\n

   .Link<\/p>\n

     Http:\/\/www.ScriptingGuys.com<\/p>\n

 #Requires -Version 2.0<\/p>\n

 #><\/p>\n

 Param([int]$space=1)<\/p>\n

 $tab = ” ” * $space<\/p>\n

 $text = $psISE.CurrentFile.editor.selectedText<\/p>\n

foreach ($l in $text -split [environment]::newline)<\/p>\n

  {<\/p>\n

   $newText += “{0}{1}” -f ($tab + $l),[environment]::newline<\/p>\n

  }<\/p>\n

   $psISE.CurrentFile.Editor.InsertText($newText)<\/p>\n

} #end function move-text<\/p>\n

The following image illustrates calling the Move-Text<\/b> function, and it shows indenting the selected text.<\/p>\n

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

Well, that is about it. I added the function to my Windows PowerShell ISE profile module. Now I can easily indent my script without the requirement of incorporating tabs into my code.<\/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, shows how to create a function to indent your code in the Windows PowerShell ISE without tabbing. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the cool things about a road trip is that it gives me a chance to catch up on stuff I want to do. […]<\/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":[3,4,61,45,100],"class_list":["post-9021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-scripting-guy","tag-scripting-techniques","tag-weekend-scripter","tag-windows-powershell","tag-windows-powershell-ise"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

Summary: Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, shows how to create a function to indent your code in the Windows PowerShell ISE without tabbing. Microsoft Scripting Guy, Ed Wilson, is here. One of the cool things about a road trip is that it gives me a chance to catch up on stuff I want to do. […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9021","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=9021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9021\/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=9021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}