Finding all variables and functions in Powershell

To get the list of all the variables or functions that have been declared and pre-existing:

ls variable:*

ls function:*

Note: You can change the wildcard(*) if you are looking for something more specific.

ls can obviously be substituted with dir or get-childitem if you are more familiar with those key-words.

Something Interesting:

If you want to look more closely at what the function is actually doing then you just need to type: $function:<name of function> like so:

$function:mkdir

which will return:

param([string] $name) New-Item $name -type directory

Lights Out Game (XAML)

I figured I should start learning Xaml, since it is used in WPF and Silverlight. I found this nice tutorial on Code Project: http://www.codeproject.com/KB/silverlight/SilverlightsOut.aspx on how to make a game as a introduction to silverlight.

I however first decided to make it a WPF application to try my hand at that first. One of the first things I learned was about the error:

The calling thread cannot access this object because a different thread owns it.

In the original he had it setup to use the HTMLtimer use the Tick event to move the background of stars like so:

System.Windows.Browser.HtmlTimer timer =

   new System.Windows.Browser.HtmlTimer();

timer.Interval = 1;

timer.Enabled = true;

timer.Tick += new EventHandler(timer_Tick);

 

I figured that I would need to change this to use the Timer class:

Timer timer_error = new Timer();

timer_error.Interval = 1.0;

timer_error.Enabled = true;

timer_error.Start();

timer_error.Elapsed += new ElapsedEventHandler(timer_error_Elapsed);

Then I got the error, which I then found:

"The .NET Framework 2.0 supports several timer objects, among them System.Timers.Timer, System.Threading.Timer, and System.Windows.Forms.Timer. However, these timers cannot be used directly by a WPF application since they run in a different thread than the one running the WPF UI."

(source: http://blogs.msdn.com/wpfsdk/archive/2006/06/23/Animating-Traffic-Map-Image-Data.aspx)

The solution is to use the System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer like so:

System.Windows.Threading.DispatcherTimer timer  = new DispatcherTimer();  

timer.Interval = new TimeSpan(0,0,0,0,85);

timer.Start();

timer.Tick += new EventHandler(timer_Tick);

 

I also had to change little things through out the program to get it to work, such as:

void timer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

   double currentLeft = (double)background.GetValue(Canvas.LeftProperty);

   // get current left position of background

   if (currentLeft <= 0)

   {

      // move background pixels over

      background.SetValue(Canvas.LeftProperty, currentLeft + 2);

   }

   else

   {

     // reset backgrounds position

     background.SetValue(Canvas.LeftProperty, currentLeft - 340); 

     //instead of

    background.SetValue(Canvas.LeftProperty, -340);

   }

}

 

I still have lots to learn. Currently I'm still adding more functionality to the app. I'm thinking that I should add a "restart" and make a auto-solve.

Technorati Tags: 3.0,C#,wpf,xaml

Signing your PowerShell script

I got an error "File ... cannot be loaded. The file ... is not digitally signed. The script will not execute on the system. Please see "get-help about_signing" for more details.." when starting PowerShell today, after installing the new Windows SDK.

So, I scrambled to find a solution on how to make a certificate and sign it to a PowerShell script. On Scott Hanselman's Blog: http://www.hanselman.com/blog/SigningPowerShellScripts.aspx 
he shows a easy to follow step by step on how to do so.

 

P.S. 

I also had to rest my Home directory.

Technorati Tags: powershell,signing,certificate,script

Running Powershell in C#

Found this interesting article on Code Project the other day, on how to run PowerShell scripts from within C#.

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/HowToRunPowerShell.aspx

Prerequisites:

• Powershell
• Windows SDK for Windows Vista and .Net 3.0 (can also be run on XP SP2).

Code:

Add a reference System.Management.Automation from C:\Program Files\Reference Assemblies\Microsoft\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0

Import

using System.Management.Automation;

using System.Collections.ObjectModel;

using System.Management.Automation.Runspaces;

 

Note: I did have to edit his function, to get it to work for me, and also added a try/catch to spew out the error.

private string RunScript(string scriptText)

{

    // create Powershell runspace

    Runspace runspace = RunspaceFactory.CreateRunspace();

 

    // open it

    runspace.Open();

 

   // create a pipeline and feed it the script text

   Pipeline pipeline = runspace.CreatePipeline();

   pipeline.Commands.AddScript(scriptText);

 

   // add an extra command to transform the script output objects into nicely formatted strings

   // remove this line to get the actual objects that the script returns. For example, the script

   // "Get-Process" returns a collection of System.Diagnostics.Process instances.

   pipeline.Commands.Add("Out-String");

 

   // execute the script

   Collection<PSObject> results = new Collection<PSObject>();

   try

   {

      results = pipeline.Invoke();

   }

   catch (Exception ex)

   {

      results.Add(new PSObject((object)ex.Message));

   }

 

 

   // close the runspace

   runspace.Close();

 

   // convert the script result into a single string

   StringBuilder stringBuilder = new StringBuilder();

   foreach (PSObject obj in results)

   {

       stringBuilder.AppendLine(obj.ToString());

   }

 

   return stringBuilder.ToString();

}

 

Technorati Tags: .Net,3.0,C#,powershell