At the PowerShell Deep Dive in San Diego, I did a lightning session showing off something I had been working on. Sometimes I don’t know what possesses me, but I felt the need for a better way to navigate my PowerShell scripts files that had many functions. Some files, especially modules, can get quite long and contain a number of functions. When using the PowerShell ISE I wanted a faster way to jump to a function. The problem is I don’t always remember what I called a function or where it is in the file. It is very easy to jump to a particular line in the ISE using the Ctrl+G shortcut.
So I started with some basics.
$Path=$psise.CurrentFile.FullPath
I decided I’d use a regular expression pattern to find my functions. I write my functions like this:
Function Get-Foo {
Param()
...
So I came up with a regex pattern to match the first line and to include the Filter keyword as well.
[regex]$r="^(Function|Filter)\s\S+\s{"
I first thought of searching the content of the current file, but that won’t give me a line number. Then I thought of Select-String. With my regex pattern, I can get the content of the current file and pipe it to Select-String. The match object that comes out the other end of the pipeline includes a line number property (awesome) and the matching line. I decided to do a little string parsing on the later to drop off the trailing curly brace.
$list=get-content $path |
select-string $r | Select LineNumber,
@{Name="Function";Expression={$_.Line.Split()[1]}}
Because I’m in the ISE I felt the need to stay graphical, so my first thought was to pipe the results to Out-Gridview.
$list | out-gridview -Title $psise.CurrentFile.FullPath
Here’s a sample result.
Now I can see the function name and line number. In the ISE I can do Ctrl+G and jump to the function. Of course, if I modify the file and line numbers change I need to close the grid and re-run my command. But wait, there’s more….
I’ve never done much with the WPF and figured this would be a great opportunity to do something with the ShowUI module. I already had the data. All I had to do was create a form with ShowUI. This is what I ended up with.
[string]$n=$psise.CurrentFile.DisplayName
ScrollViewer -ControlName $n -CanContentScroll -tag $psise.CurrentFile.FullPath -content {
StackPanel -MinWidth 300 -MaxHeight 250 `
-orientation Vertical -Children {
#get longest number if more than one function is found
if ($count -eq 1) {
[string]$i=$list.Linenumber
}
else {
[string]$i=$list[-1].Linenumber
}
$l=$i.length
foreach ($item in $list) {
[string]$text="{0:d$l} {1}" -f $item.linenumber,$item.function
Button $text -HorizontalContentAlignment Left -On_Click {
#get the line number
[regex]$num="^\d+"
#parse out the line number
$goto = $num.match($this.content).value
#grab the file name from the tab value of the parent control
[string]$f= $parent | get-uivalue
#Open the file in the editor
psedit $f
#goto the selected line
$psise.CurrentFile.Editor.SetCaretPosition($goto,1)
#close the control
Get-ParentControl | Set-UIValue -PassThru |Close-Control
} #onclick
} #foreach
}
} -show
The result is a stack panel of buttons in a scroll control. The button shows the line number and function name.
When a button is clicked, the function gets the line number and automatically jumps to it. Originally I was leaving the control open, but this means the function is still running. And if I change the script the line numbers are off so I simply close the form after jumping to the function.
In the end, I packaged all of this as a script file that adds a menu choice. If ShowUI is available, the function will use it. Otherwise the function defaults to Out-GridView.
Function Get-ISEFunction {
[cmdletbinding()]
Param([string]$Path=$psise.CurrentFile.FullPath)
#import ShowUI if found and use it later in the functoin
if (Get-module -name ShowUI -listavailable) {
Import-Module ShowUI
$showui=$True
}
else {
Write-Verbose "Using Out-GridView"
$showui=$False
}
#define a regex to find "function | filter NAME {"
[regex]$r="^(Function|Filter)\s\S+\s{"
$list=get-content $path |
select-string $r | Select LineNumber,
@{Name="Function";Expression={$_.Line.Split()[1]}}
#were any functions found?
if ($list) {
$count=$list | measure-object | Select-object -ExpandProperty Count
Write-Verbose "Found $count functions"
if ($showui) {
<#
display function list with a WPF Form from ShowUI
Include file name so the right tab can get selected
#>
[string]$n=$psise.CurrentFile.DisplayName
Write-Verbose "Building list for $n"
ScrollViewer -ControlName $n -CanContentScroll -tag $psise.CurrentFile.FullPath -content {
StackPanel -MinWidth 300 -MaxHeight 250 `
-orientation Vertical -Children {
#get longest number if more than one function is found
if ($count -eq 1) {
[string]$i=$list.Linenumber
}
else {
[string]$i=$list[-1].Linenumber
}
$l=$i.length
foreach ($item in $list) {
[string]$text="{0:d$l} {1}" -f $item.linenumber,$item.function
Write-Verbose $text
Button $text -HorizontalContentAlignment Left -On_Click {
#get the line number
[regex]$num="^\d+"
#parse out the line number
$goto = $num.match($this.content).value
#grab the file name from the tab value of the parent control
[string]$f= $parent | get-uivalue
#Open the file in the editor
psedit $f
#goto the selected line
$psise.CurrentFile.Editor.SetCaretPosition($goto,1)
#close the control
Get-ParentControl | Set-UIValue -PassThru |Close-Control
} #onclick
} #foreach
}
} -show
} #if $showui
else {
#no ShowUI module so use Out-GridView
$list | out-gridview -Title $psise.CurrentFile.FullPath
}
}
else {
Write-Host "No functions found in $($psise.CurrentFile.FullPath)" -ForegroundColor Magenta
}
} #close function
#Add to the Add-ons menu
$PSISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.AddOnsMenu.Submenus.Add("List Functions",{Get-ISEFunction},$null)
#optional alias
set-alias gif get-isefunction
Now, I can click the List Functions menu choice and I’ll get a graphical list of any functions in the current file. I’m sure the regex could be tweaked. I’m also sure there are improvements I could make to the ShowUI code, but it works.
Download Get-ISEFunction and let me know what you think.
Over the last few weeks I’ve posted articles on the different parameter validation options in Windows PowerShell. More than one person suggested consolidating the articles. That seemed like a good idea. There were a variety of ways to handle this but I wanted something more PowerShell-oriented. Then I realized, why not produce PowerShell About topics? I could create a module that primarily was a collection of about topics on scripting in PowerShell. Import the module and you get the documentation. 
