{"id":6492,"date":"2019-02-01T12:32:30","date_gmt":"2019-02-01T17:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jdhitsolutions.com\/blog\/?p=6492"},"modified":"2019-02-01T12:32:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T17:32:36","slug":"creating-more-git-powershell-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jdhitsolutions.com\/blog\/powershell\/6492\/creating-more-git-powershell-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating More Git PowerShell Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have received a tremendous amount of interest in my recent articles on creating a git sizing tool using PowerShell<\/a>. Many of you were savvy enough to realize the journey I was describing was just as important as the destination. With that in mind, I decided to revisit another PowerShell and git-related project that I wrote about last year. I created a PowerShell function to write an object version of your git configuration<\/a>. That function, which originated as a script, is nothing more than a fancy wrapper around a command like git config --global --list<\/em>. Except that instead of dealing with text I have objects in the pipeline.\u00a0 Anyway, based on some things I learned in the last article and some of the techniques I used, I decided to revisit the code and update it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Adding a Custom Type<\/h2>\n

The essence of the PowerShell function is to run a git config<\/em> command and parse the structured data into an object. The previous function wrote a generic custom object to the pipeline. But I decided to take advantage of the technique where I can define the typename with the object.<\/p>\n

foreach ($line in $data) {\n    $split = $line.split(\"=\")\n    #split the first element again to get the category and name\n    $sub = $split[0].split(\".\")\n    [PSCustomObject]@{\n        PSTypeName   = 'gitConfig'\n        Scope        = $scope\n        Category     = $sub[0]\n        Name         = $sub[1]\n        Setting      = $split[1]\n        Username     = $env:username\n        Computername = $env:COMPUTERNAME\n    }\n} #foreach line\n<\/pre>\n
Each line from the git configuration will be turned into a custom object of the type 'gitConfig'. While I was at it, I decided to include additional parameters for the username and computername.\u00a0 Even though the intent is to run the command locally, if the data is serialized or saved to a file it might be helpful to know where it originated. As you build your own PowerShell tools you always need to be thinking about how the results might be used and even where<\/em> they might be consumed.<\/p>\n
Extending the gitConfig Type<\/h2>\n
So now I have a custom object with its own type name. By default I'll get all properties. But I don't really want that. By default I don't need to see the Username and Computername properties. The solution, as I did last time, is to define a default property set using Update-TypeData<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Update-TypeData -TypeName 'gitConfig' -DefaultDisplayPropertySet 'Scope', 'Category', 'Name', 'Setting' -force\n<\/pre>\n
The additional properties are there if I need them.<\/p>\n
Since I created my custom object to be more PowerShell-like it may lose some of its 'git-ness'. For example, in the custom object I am using property names like Category and Setting. But in the git world, these parts of the configuration file are probably more likely referred to as Section and Value. One thing I can do to make the result more git-friendly, is to create alias properties for Category and Setting.<\/p>\n
Update-TypeData -TypeName 'gitConfig' -MemberType AliasProperty -MemberName 'Value' -Value 'Setting' -force\nUpdate-TypeData -TypeName 'gitConfig' -MemberType AliasProperty -MemberName 'Section' -Value 'Category' -force\n<\/pre>\n
Even the the default display won't use the aliases, although it certainly could, if the user knows the aliases exist they can use them.<\/p>\n
\"Using<\/a><\/p>\n
I also added a custom type extension to show the git version.<\/p>\n
Update-TypeData -TypeName 'gitConfig' -MemberType ScriptProperty -MemberName gitVersion -value {git --version} -force\n<\/pre>\n
Get-Member<\/a> displays all of these properties.<\/p>\n
\"Viewing<\/a><\/p>\n
The PowerShell Code<\/h2>\n
I've posted this version of the script on GitHub<\/a>.<\/p>\n