Useful PowerShell one liners

I don't like complicated applications for counting lines of code, especially because I consider it to be a bogus metric in the first place. I end up using a PS one-liner instead:

PS C:\Path> (dir -include *.cs,*.xaml -recurse | select-string .).Count

I just include the extensions of the files I want to include in the line count and go for it from the project's root directory.

I found it useful to show values of environment variables

dir env:

And you can copy an env value as well to the clipboard

$env:appdata | % { [windows.forms.clipboard]::SetText($input) }

(you need to have windows.forms loaded before the call: Add-Type –a system.windows.forms; and run PowerShell with -STA switch)

Copy some to the desktop:

Copy-Item $home\*.txt ([Environment]::GetFolderPath("Desktop"))

List all the files that I've updated today:

dir | ?{$_.LastWriteTime -ge [DateTime]::Today}

Use it so often that I've actually created a little function in my profile:

function Where-UpdatedSince{
Param([DateTime]$date = [DateTime]::Today,
[switch]$before=$False)
Process
{
if (($_.LastWriteTime -ge $date) -xor $before)
{
Write-Output $_
}
}
}; set-item -path alias:wus -value Where-UpdatedSince


So I can say:

dir | wus
dir | wus "1/1/2009"

To see stuff updated before today:

dir | wus -before

Suppress Visual Studio 2012 ALL CAPS Menus - The very first thing I do after installing VS2012.

Set-ItemProperty -Path HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\11.0\General -Name SuppressUppercaseConversion -Type DWord -Value 1


Thanks to [Richard Banks][1] who discovered the registry value.


[1]:

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List all Windows Providers in alpha order:

get-winevent -listprovider microsoft-windows* | % {$_.Name} | sort

Actually you can use this with a wildcard for any specific group of Providers:

get-winevent -listprovider microsoft-windows-Securit* | % {$_.Name} | sort

pipe the output of something to the clipboard

ls | clip

Generate some pseudo random bytes in a file.

[Byte[]]$out=@(); 0..9 | %{$out += Get-Random -Minimum 0 -Maximum 255}; [System.IO.File]::WriteAllBytes("random",$out)

The Get-Random algorithm takes a seed from the system clock, so don't use this for serious cryptographic needs.

cls
Get rid of all the intractable, -verbose red marks after each of my attempted commands, letting me resume with a nice posh clear looking screen.

I hesitate to enumerate my list of PowerShell one-liners one by one as the list numbers just about 400 entries at present! :-) But here are a few of my favorites, to pique your interest:

- List all type accelerators (requires [PSCX][1]): `[accelerators]::get`
- Convert a string representation of XML to actual XML: `[xml]"<root><a>...</a></root>"`
- Dump an object (increase depth for more detail): `$PWD | ConvertTo-Json -Depth 2`
- Recall command from history by substring (looking up earlier 'cd' cmd): `#cd`
- Access C# enum value: `[System.Text.RegularExpressions.RegexOptions]::Singleline`
- Generate bar chart (requires Jeff Hicks' [cmdlet][2]): `ls . | select name,length | Out-ConsoleGraph -prop length -grid`

The whole collection is publicly available in a 4-part series published on Simple-Talk.com -- I hope that these will be useful to SO readers!

- Part 1: [Help, Syntax, Display and Files][3]
- Part 2: [Variables, Parameters, Properties, and Objects][4]
- Part 3: [Collections and Hash Tables][5]
- Part 4: [Files and Data Streams][6]

I wanted to call the series *"Do Anything in One Line of PowerShell"* but my editor wanted something more terse, so we went with *PowerShell One-Liners*. Though in the interests of full disclosure, only 98% or so are really one-liners in the true spirit of the term; I thought that was close enough with rounding... :-)


[1]:

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[2]:

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[3]:

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[4]:

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[5]:

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[6]:

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