The Select-StringCurrentFile (aliased: sscf) lets me search the entire Visual Studio active document for strings (see Example Usage), returning the line and the line number it is found on. Using the Goto-InCurrentWindow function (aliased: gicw), passing the line number; it jumps to that line in that document.

The Console

The NuGet console, is a PowerShell console which is hooked up to the Visual Studio environment through the DTE. It is accessed via the PowerShell variable $dte.

From the $dte variable, I use properties such as, ActiveDocument, ExcecuteCommand and Windows. There are other properties and methods on the $dte object, I reviewed them in the NuGet console with this:

$dte | Get-Member

The PowerShell Functions

The Select-StringCurrentFile function gets the active document’s full name and passes it to PowerShell’s built in cmdlet Select-String (aka grep, like in Unix). This returns the matches it finds. I extract and emit the Line and LinNumber in a new object. Note, the $pattern can be any valid regular expression.

The Goto-InCurrentWindow function takes a line number as a parameter, Activates the current window and then uses ExecuteCommand. I pass two parameters to ExecuteCommand. “Edit.Goto” and the line number. Edit.Goto is a built in Visual Studio command. I discovered the other Visual Studio commands with this:

$dte.Commands | ForEach {$_.Name}

In the Example Usage I use the aliases I created for the function, sscf and gicw. This lets me type fewer characters than the full function names.

function Goto-InCurrentWindow ($lineNumber) {            
    $dte.Windows.Item($dte.ActiveDocument.Name).Activate()            
    $dte.ExecuteCommand("Edit.GoTo", $lineNumber)            
}            
            
function Select-StringCurrentFile {            
    param($pattern)            
            
    Select-String $pattern $dte.ActiveDocument.FullName |             
        ForEach {            
            $line = $_.line.Trim()            
            
            New-Object PSObject -Property @{            
                Line = $line            
                LineNumber = $_.LineNumber            
            }            
        }            
}            
            
Set-Alias gicw Goto-InCurrentWindow            
Set-Alias sscf Select-StringCurrentFile

Example Usage

Leveraging PowerShell’s .NET Framework integration (Net.WebClient) you download the XML string from the OData endpoint, convert it an XML Document using the [xml] accelerator and iterate the collection extracting the Id, converting the download count to an int and finally selecting the top 15 ( pipes to PowerShell’s Select cmdlet using the –First parameter).

Get Top 15 NuGet Downloads

You can add the Get-NuGetStats function to your NuGet PM Console Profile (type $profile at the prompt) so it will be available the next time you load Visual Studio. For now, paste the code (see below) into the PM Console (or any other PowerShell Host) and run the function.

The Code

Function Get-NuGetStats {            
    $url = 'http://packages.nuget.org/GalleryServer/FeedService.svc/Packages?$orderby=VersionDownloadCount desc&$select=Id,VersionDownloadCount'            
    $wc = New-Object net.webclient            
            
    $(            
        ForEach($entry in ([xml] ($wc.DownloadString($url))).feed.entry ) {            
            $entry.properties |             
                Select Id, @{            
                    Name="DownloadCount"            
                    Expression={[int]($_.VersionDownloadCount.'#text')            
                }            
            }            
        }            
    ) | Select -First 15 | Format-Table -AutoSize            
}

Paste the Code into the NuGet Package Manager Console

Works in any PowerShell Host, PowerShell Console, ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment) or NuGet PM Console.

Note, these steps can be used to pull and transform any OData feed. The differences being the OData endpoint and the field names being retrieved.

Check out the NuGet OData URL. It specifies both the $orderby and $select system query options. This makes the work of sorting the data the responsibility of the server as well as reduces the amount of data returned. $Select limits how many fields are sent back to the client.

Modifications

You can easily parameterize Get-NuGetStats so it defaults to returning the Top 15 or lets the user specify how many they would like.

The demo covered:

• The Package Manager Console, PowerShell inside Visual Studio
• Get-Package, Install-Package, Uninstall-Package and Update-Package
• Setting up a local NuGet Repository simply on the file system
• Authoring NuGet packages with Nuget.exe and the XML spec
• Using init.ps1, install.ps1 and uninstall.ps1 to add/remove/Import-Module my custom PowerShell module during a NuGet Install-Package

I want to thank David for inviting me and the the group that showed up for the presentation.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many developers were actually using PowerShell. PowerShell is definitely heading up the adoption curve.

Follow me on Twitter, I’ll be giving details on how to win a Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate MSDN subscription.

PowerShell cmdlets (functions) follow a verb noun pattern, for example, Get-Item, Remove-Item, Set-Item. As a developer of PowerShell tools, if you follow this pattern, consumers of your cmdlets benefit greatly. It is a glide path to discovery.

How Consumers Benefit

Let’s say you ship a set of functionality around, Tires. If you use common verbs, your cmdlets look like Get-Tire, Set-Tire, Remove-Tire, Add-Tire etc. NuGet does this and now you can leverage your PowerShell knowledge and quickly discover how this ecosystem works.

Discovering NuGet Package Cmdlets

Get-Command is a key PowerShell cmdlet and is similar to the which command in Unix. Let’s find all the cmdlets that have the word pack in the name.

Get-Command *pack* -CommandType cmdlet | Format-Table -AutoSize

We’ve discovered there are 5 commands that have package as their noun:

• Get-Package
• Install-Package
• New-Package
• Uninstall-Package
• Update-Package

Let’s inject a GUI into our pipeline. This makes viewing package information easier.

Get-Package | Out-GridView

Note, Out-GridView can be shortened to ogv because it is aliased.

Type in sca in the filter box, I was looking for Scott Hansleman’s MvcScaffold package.

The Out-GridView cmdlet works out of the box in PowerShell V2 and can be used with any application that hosts PowerShell. You can do this with the PowerShell command line, NuGet Console, PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment (ISE) and others.

Wrap Up

The good news, even if you’re only using the NuGet Console, you’re experiencing the fundamentals of the PowerShell automation platform. You will see this played out in Azure cmdlets, AppFabric, cluster management and there’s a lot more coming.

Learning these fundamentals are worth the investment and this will be transferrable to the numerous systems employing PowerShell that are coming down the pipe.

PowerShell inside Visual Studio 2010

That’s right, PowerShell inside Visual Studio 2010. Interesting possibilities. He also demoed (code that won’t will be shipped) where he worked Visual Studio like a puppet on strings from the PowerShell console. Again, interesting possibilities.

NuPack is a free, open source developer focused package management system for the .NET platform. I’ve blogged on NuPack and Power Console. PowerConsole has been re-released as part of NuPack.

• Check Available .NET Packages without NuPack Installed
• NuPack – Open Source Package Manager for .NET – Includes a PowerShell Interface
• Visual Visual Studio Keymaps using PowerShell
• Accessing Visual Studio’s Automation API From PowerShell
• PowerShell and F# Consoles in Visual Studio 2010
• PowerConsole – PowerShell Integrated with Visual Studio 2010

We are setting up a new Continuous Build server and as we tweak parameters, things happen. For example, false positives. The build worked on the server but fails locally.

As a sanity check and major time saver, this script runs MSBuild on a remote computer. You specify the name of the remote box and the Visual Studio solution path and filename.

Invoke-RemoteMSBuild ServerX G:\Build\Test.sln

No Fuss, No Muss

You run this script on your box, the MSBuild runs remotely. The MSBuild output is returned to your local box. No remoting in, no login, simple and easy.

Function Invoke-RemoteMSBuild {            
    param (            
        $computerName ,            
        $vsSolution = $(throw "Please specify the solution file")            
    )            
            
    Invoke-Command -ComputerName $computerName {            
        param ($vsSolution)            
            
        $msbuildpath = "$($env:windir)\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\MSBuild.exe"            
        & $msbuildpath $vsSolution            
            
    } -ArgumentList $vsSolution            
}

You need to have PowerShell installed on both boxes, run Enable-PSRemoting on both boxes and you need to be in the admin group on the server.

Thanks to colleague Jason Dolinger who is quickly ramping up on PowerShell and asked if this could be done.

Follow me on twitter, I’ll be giving details on how to win a Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate MSDN subscription at my Code Camp session.

ScottGu’s post on NuPack

Package Manager Console

Is a Visual Studio 2010 Add-in which is a PowerShell Console, a custom PowerShell host.

Follow me on twitter, I’ll be giving details how to win a Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate MSDN subscription at my Code Camp session.