Friday Fun: A Better PSEdit

In the PowerShell ISE, there is a built-in function called PSEdit. You can use this function to easily load a file in to the ISE directly from the ISE command prompt.

Psedit c:\scripts\myscript.ps1

You can also load multiple files, but not as easily as you might like. I find myself wanting to do this:

As you can see isn't what I'm expecting. I can get PSEdit to open multiple files, but I need to use a command like this:

psedit (dir vAL*.PS1)

I finally tired of this so I looked at the code for the PSEdit function.

I am assuming based on what I see that this was written a long time ago. So I decided to update it. Here's my version:

#requires -version 4.0

Function PSEdit2 {
[cmdletbinding()]

param(
[Parameter(Mandatory,ValueFromPipeline,ValueFromPipelineByPropertyName,
HelpMessage="Enter a file path")]
[Alias("Fullname","Filenames")]
[ValidateScript({
if (Test-Path $_) {
$True
}
else {
Throw "Cannot validate path $_."
}
})]
[string[]]$Path
)

Begin {
   Write-Verbose "Starting $($MyInvocation.Mycommand)"
} #begin

Process {
   foreach ($filename in $path) {
     #resolve paths
     $resolved = Resolve-Path -Path $filename
     Write-Verbose "Opening $resolved"
     $psISE.CurrentPowerShellTab.Files.Add($resolved) | Out-Null
}

} #process
End {
  Write-Verbose "Ending $($MyInvocation.Mycommand)"
} #end

} #end function

The major difference is that my version works in the pipeline making it easier, for me at least, to open multiple files at once.

dir val*.ps1 | psedit2

I also added some verbose messages for troubleshooting. This is my common practice when creating new PowerShell tools. You'll also notice that I replaced the aliases in the original function with complete cmdlet and parameter names.

The last "feature" is my customized ValidateScript attribute. I wanted to verify that any path pointed to a legitimate file. I could have simply used this:

[ValidateScript({Test-Path $_})]

But if the path failed the test, PowerShell displays a long error message that isn't always helpful. So I added some logic. Validation tests have to return either True or False. When it is false, PowerShell throws the exception. So I wrote my own exception message.

I get a similar error with the original psedit.

So perhaps I haven't improved on it that much. But I could have written an even longer message and I wanted to demonstrate this technique in case you wanted to use it.

One last word on my version of PSEdit. I didn't use a standard name, I guess because the original function doesn't use one. And I'm ok with that. This is one of the situations where the function is a "cheater" command with a simple, alias-like, name. If you want to replace the original PSEdit function, add mine to your ISE profile script and rename it to PSEdit.

Enjoy.

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