In the PowerShell NNTP newsgroup, a user had a long string of code that covered multiple lines (had line breaks), and the user was attempting to paste the code into the PowerShell console.
The string was a long Exchange 2007 command. Because of the line breaks that were included in the copy and paste, the command string would not run in the Exchange Management Shell.
A very simple example, yet still similar, of what the user was copying and pasting from Notepad (or some other text editor/application) was:
write-host
"testing"
-foregroundcolor
"red"
So if I copy this from Notepad, then paste it directly into a PowerShell console, and try to run it, it will fail when it hits the -foregroundcolor line.
So, just for fun, I thought there must be a easier way to do this, and started looking at HERE strings.
So from, PowerShell, I typed:
PSH>$multi=@' [hit enter]
[copy and paste the code from Notepad as is]
>> '@ [closed off the HERE string]
>> [hit enter]
Now, I have a string named $multi with all the data I need:
PSH>$multi
write-host
"testing"
-foregroundcolor
"red"
Now, my only problem is that it is on separate lines, but it is still a string object.
PSH>$multi.gettype()
IsPublic IsSerial Name
-------- -------- ----
True True String
I need to combine this all into a single string, then I can use invoke-expression to run it.
So, I need to loop through every single character in $multi, and combine it into one single line. I have to do a something a little fancy with the return character. To easy the change, I also turn it into a string, then I have the replace method available.
So here's something I put together:
for($i=0;$i -lt $multi.length;$i++)
{ if($multi[$i].tostring() -eq [char]10)
{ [string]$join+=$multi[$i].tostring().replace([char]10,[char]32)
}
else
{ [string]$join+=$multi[$i]
}
}
After I run this, I get:
PSH>$join
write-host "testing" -foregroundcolor "red"
Finally to invoke it, I just do:
PSH>invoke-expression $join
testing [output is red]
Obviously, I have to reset $join to nothing to reuse it again later:
PSH>$join=""
Hopefully, this helps others when trying to do quick copy and pasting into a PowerShell console.
It would be good to create a function of this, and likely define the input and output strings as arguments.
I'll do just that in a future blog post.
Update: January 24th, 2008. Check the comments on how to drastically simplify this. Since a HERE string is a string object, I should have just used the replace method on the entire HERE string, instead of doing a for loop at all...
