Add a bit of Control to Your PowerShell Code

Currently I am in the middle of writing a script that is exceeding 2500 lines of code. Although I can keep the horizontal scrolling under control, the vertical scrolling is getting out of hand. The collapsible code functionality in the PowerShell V3 ISE really helps in keeping the scrolling down.

In the screenshot above, you can see those little “+” symbols on lines 164 and 201. Notice the line numbers jump from 164 to 194. This collapsible region was defined by the curly braces for this function. Once I get a function completely debugged, I collapse it to make my scrolling easier. In my current situation with 2500+ lines of code, collapsing every region each time I load the script in the ISE is a bit time consuming. Here is a little secrete, press Ctrl M. Take a look at my code now.

Now I can selectively expand my code so I am only looking at what I need to look at. This little trick will help reduce the frustration of vertically scrolling through large amounts of code and will also save your mouse wheel from unnecessary wear and tear, not to mention your index finger. This little shortcut is not listed on the Microsoft Keyboard Shortcuts webpage for the ISE. To expand all of your collapsible regions, press Ctrl M once again.

My friend Jakub Jareš has an article on PowerShellMagazine.com about how to use Regions to manually define expansion regions in your code. It is worth a few minutes of your time.

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Jason Yoder, MCT

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